A critical genetic database is under fire

IN THE past decade the rapid sharing of genetic sequences, particularly of pathogens, has begun to play a pivotal role in global public health. Such sharing is crucial in assessing the risk of new viruses, developing medical countermeasures such as vaccines, and planning an international response. Scientists, laboratories and governments routinely upload newly sequenced pathogens to global repositories. The biggest and most prominent of these databases is GISAID.

To outsiders, the name GISAID means little. But inside science this small non-profit organisation is a mighty force in the storage and sharing of genetic data about pathogens. The Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data began life in 2006, the brainchild of a group of scientists. During the covid-19 pandemic it became essential for sharing coronavirus sequences. Donors have since showered it with millions of dollars. GISAID’s data determine how well the world is able to track emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, and help identify ones of particular concern. But in the past few weeks serious concerns have emerged about the organisation’s management and lack of transparency.

On March 21st it emerged that GISAID had revoked the access of a group of international scientists who had been working on Chinese covid data. The argument centred on a dispute over whether they had broken the rules governing use of the database. Their access has since been restored. But the row inspired other scientists to say that they had also had their access to GISAID removed, hampering public-health work.

Their concerns are not new. In March 2021 an article in the journal Science highlighted worries among scientists over restrictions on their access to the same database, and their inability to secure explanations for what had happened. But now GISAID’s funders have started to worry about the way it operates.

GISAID has received millions of dollars from the Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organisation; the World Health Organisation (WHO); and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a foundation that funds vaccine research. It has also received donations from pharmaceutical companies. In the first year of the pandemic, the WHO gave GISAID $1.7m; pharmaceutical firms gave another $1.7m. Donations have continued to roll in, enabling the platform to scale up. By April 2021, 1m coronavirus sequences had been posted to GISAID. In June 2021 the Rockefeller Foundation gave it another $5.1m.

Some funders worry about a lack of transparency in the governance of GISAID, especially over the identity of its board members. One funding organisation which asked to remain anonymous describes GISAID as “opaque”. Many, though, understand the organisation to be run mostly by one man: Peter Bogner, its founder. Mr Bogner, a former television-studio executive, is understood to be based in California. (GISAID also has an administrative base in Germany run by a charity, Freunde von GISAID. e.V., or “Friends of GISAID”.)

Nancy Akite Opiokello, the grants manager for GISAID, said in an email: “GISAID has received (and continues to receive) funding from sophisticated grant bodies that independently conduct rigorous due diligence, including equivalency determinations required for public charities. It is axiomatic that had any issues arisen during these due diligence procedures, GISAID would not have been awarded any of its current (or historical) grants.”

But another funder, who asked to remain anonymous owing to the sensitivity of the topic, told The Economist that its investment was made early in the pandemic “in crisis mode”. Another says that it had provided bridge funding, as it valued GISAID’s unique role, and hoped the organisation would come back with proposals on governance. Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for covid-19 at WHO, says GISAID needs to answer the questions put to it.

The governance issues surrounding GISAID are snowballing. In recent days it has emerged that the organisation has been turned down for long-term funding by pharmaceutical companies via the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), on governance grounds.

In a statement on March 30th Thomas Cueni, the boss of IFPMA, said it was “critical” for GISAID to provide transparent governance as well as a clear explanation of how it will adjudicate complaints from scientists. GISAID challenged this account, saying that it had turned down money from industry in order to “maintain the confidence of data contributors”. But discussions between vaccine firms and GISAID have been continuing since November 2020, after the organisation issued a request for financial support from the private sector.

Bruce Gellin, chief of global public-health strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation, says that his organisation believes a global early-warning system for pandemics is possible only with “sufficient accountability, good governance and transparency as enumerated in WHO’s guiding principles for pathogen genome data sharing”. These guidelines specify that the membership of boards and committees, and their terms of reference, should be publicly available.

It is not clear when GISAID will reform the way it operates. Angie Hinrichs, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is among those scientists who had her access to GISAID genomic sequences restricted without explanation. Her limited access obliged her to spend 750 hours downloading sequences in tiny chunks during the pandemic, she says.

Bede Constantinides, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford, says that during covid he worked on a system that automated the reporting of lab sequence data. When he asked GISAID if his system could be made to talk to its one—so that data from Britain’s National Health Service could be shared automatically—he received no reply and had his account blocked from uploading to GISAID. GISAID is now “mostly useless” to him, he says, adding that his emails continue to go unanswered. Many scientists say they fear taking their complaints public in case they lose access to the database.

Mr Bogner was unavailable for an interview. But GISAID’s website says that the organisation’s mission is the promotion of rapid data-sharing from all influenza viruses and the coronavirus that causes covid-19. It also says that it “actively promotes the development of novel research tools for the analysis of influenza data by helping developers to facilitate the integration or connection of their tools to analyse GISAID data”. ■