The NIH Policy on SHARING BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH RESOURCES is available at:

http://ott.od.nih.gov/policy/research_tool.html

The NIH Draft Policy on Sharing of Mouse Lines is available at:

http://www.nih.gov/science/models/mouse/sharing/ 

 

NIH IRP Guidelines for the Availability of Transgenic/Knockout Animals

 

Transgenic and gene "knockout" animals that have been developed using National Institutes of Health intramural research funds and resources will be provided to other laboratories following publication of descriptions of the animals in the peer-reviewed literature. It is an obligation of NIH intramural scientists to make such animals widely available for research purposes. This can be achieved by making arrangements to send breeding pairs to a central repository such as the Induced Mutant Resource at the Jackson Laboratory. This would assure the availability of clean, genetically characterized animals within a year's time. An attempt should be made to reduce duplication of effort by setting up collaborative experiments whenever possible; however, this should not be used as a mechanism to inhibit the distribution of animals.

These guidelines for the intramural research program are in agreement with those of the Public Health Service for the extramural community - "it is the policy of PHS to make available to the public the results and accomplishments of the activities that it funds....Therefore, when these resources are developed with PHS funds and the associated research findings have been published or after they have been provided to the agencies under contract, it is important that they be made readily available for research purposes to qualified individuals within the scientific community. This policy applies to grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts." [http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/1996/96.07.12/notice-public-health006.html]