C O R R E S P O N D E N C E

To the editor:Exelixis has decided to make their stockcollection available to the academic researchcommunity. To that end, ∼ 2,140 stocks havealready been transferred to the BloomingtonDrosophila Stock Center (BDSC) and areready for distribution. The 519 finisheddeficiency stocks (described in Parks et al.)are ready for distribution by BDSC. Anadditional ~3500 transposon stocks have alsobeen sent to BDSC by Exelixis and althoughBDSC will not be responsible forredistributing these lines, they will be used bythe public project to drive the isogenicdeficiency kit to full coverage.

Because the publicly supported stockcenters were not able to take all of the stocks,we entered into an agreement with Exelixis totake some 16,500 stocks into my laboratoryat Harvard University. Individual stocks thatare not included in the BDSC collection willeventually be distributed in a way that isanalogous to the practice established by thestock center. Given the logistics of movingthe collection from San Francisco to Bostonand the establishment of the collection in itsnew location, we will not be able to honorrequests for strains before 1 October 2004. If

we are ready earlier, an appropriate publicannouncement will be made.

The logistics of keeping and distributing thestocks will become clear only after we havesuccessfully established the collection inBoston. We estimate that we can keep only twocopies of each strain and will be obliged tokeep them maximally before changing stocks.At this time, the number of stocks that can beordered and the number of orders we canhandle at a time are not certain. It is ourintention to try to satisfy as many people aspossible, but we may need to set limits andestablish more precise rules regardingdistribution if we are overwhelmed withrequests. If many people want the same stocks,then these will be distributed on a firstcome–first served basis. We do not currentlyhave plans to charge anyone for the stocks, butwe may have to do so in the future. If we do,we will follow the rules established at BDSC.

At this time, we do not have the means toaccommodate individual researchers comingto our facilities to use the collection. It is myhope that we will eventually be able to dojust that, but we simply must wait foradditional (public or private) funding.Harvard researchers will benefit from the

collection in exchange for contributingsubstantially to its upkeep.

We are establishing a web page that willprovide specific information and instructionsfor ordering stocks, which we plan toannounce in due course on FlyBase and in theTouching Base section of Nature Genetics. Thee-mail address associated with the collectionin Boston is drosophila@hms.harvard.edu.Researchers in commercial or other for-profitresearch sectors will have to seek a licensefrom Exelixis before acquiring stocks from us.

We gratefully acknowledge the financialand, indeed, the intellectual support ofExelixis in establishing the collection atHarvard and giving us the means todistribute stocks to the fruit fly community.

COMPETING INTERESTS STATEMENTThe author declares competing financial interests (seethe Nature Genetics website for details).

Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas

Department Of Cell Biology, Harvard MedicalSchool, MGH Center for Cancer Research,Building 149, 13th Street, Charlestown,Massachusetts 02129, USA.

Published online 22 February 2004;doi:10.1038/ng1316

Accessing the Exelixis collection

NATURE GENETICS VOLUME 36 | NUMBER 3 | MARCH 2004 207

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