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Public-private collaborations and the race to sequence Agrobacterium tumefaciens

Nature Biotechnology volume 22, pages 807–810 (2004)Cite this article

In the December 14, 2001, issue of Science, two articles appeared back-to-back presenting the genome analysis of the same strain of the same organism, Agrobacterium tumefaciens C.58 (refs. 1,2)—a bacterium often termed the 'natural genetic engineer' because of its routine use in plant biotech. The joint publication was the outcome of negotiation and followed a 'photo-finish' in the depositing of the genome sequence by the two research groups to GenBank on August 14 and 15, 2001. This intriguing double event was the result of a competition between two public-private collaborations, one involving the University of Washington Genome Center (Seattle, WA, USA), the Institute of Computing, Unicamp (Campinas, Brazil) and DuPont (Wilmington, DE, USA), the other, Monsanto (Cereon; St. Louis, MO, USA) and Hiram College (Cleveland, OH, USA). Their race to sequence A. tumefaciens illustrates the pros and cons of head-to-head competition in resource-intensive projects, the challenge to academia of maintaining the public good when collaborating with industry, and the problems posed by interactions between academia and industry in successfully completing major projects.

This article is based on in-depth interviews of many of the main players in each of the two research groups involved in sequencing A. tumefaciens. The narrative is presented in three parts: the first explores the emergence of two separate public-private collaborations following the failure or absence of either purely public or private initiatives; the second describes and analyzes the race itself and the dynamics of competition in the context of different types of intellectual property (IP) rights; and the final section discusses the implications of the mutual dependency and asymmetry of interactions between public and private sectors in knowledge creation.

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Acknowledgements

For their cooperation and help, we thank Gene Nester, Derek Wood, Rajinder Kaul from the University of Washington, Joao Setubal and Joao Kitajima from Unicamp, Campinas, Brazil; Jean François Tomb from DuPont; Brad Goodner from Hiram College and Steve Slater from Monsanto (Cereon); and Maryanna Henkart, Divisional Director and Philip Harriman, Program Director for Microbial Genomics, National Science Foundation. Interviews took place between November 2001 and June 2003, and were face to face, apart from a telephone interview with M. Henkart and correspondence with P. Harriman.

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  1. University of Manchester, ESRC Center for Research in Innovation and Competition, Harold Hankins Building, Booth Street West, Manchester, M13 9QH, UK

    Mark Harvey & Andrew McMeekin

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Harvey, M., McMeekin, A. Public-private collaborations and the race to sequence Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Nat Biotechnol 22, 807–810 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0704-807

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