Herman,
I don't know which early days you refer to, but from late 80s until structural genomics era there were relatively few crystallization reports. May be I didn't see them, and then I apologize. But crystallization reports in large started in late 90s through early 21st century and Acta F has been created to accommodate them. As far as my understanding goes, you publish crystallization results only if you're sure the structure will be solved or is already solved but not ready for different reasons to be published.
Some time ago I was in position similar to Christine's. And I waited and waited until I decided to contact the authors of the notes. Sure enough, they intended to publish structure but the postdoc left and nobody else was able to do the work.
Christine, you have got good advises already. Contact the authors and if they are reasonable publish back to back, if they are not - you do not have any legal/moral obligations to wait.
My two drams,
Vaheh
________________________________
From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 11:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Etiquette on publishing if there is a crystallization report from someone else.
In the very early days, solving a protein structure was an enormous amount of work and since hardly any protein structures were solved there was a huge pool of unsolved structures. Under these circumstances, it was a waste of resources if two groups would work on the same protein. To prevent this, people would publish crystallization notes so other groups could choose another protein to work on and this is what usually happened. Also, the purpose of scientific publications is that other people can use this information to progress their results.
Unless unethical actions were involved (holding up referee reports, making shortcuts to publish before the competition) I do not see a reason why you could not publish your paper. As Jürgen suggested, you may want to contact the other group to see if you could publish back to back.
my two cents,
Herman
________________________________
From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lukacs, Christine
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 3:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ccp4bb] Etiquette on publishing if there is a crystallization report from someone else.
I'd like to get a community opinion on something.
If a group has published crystallization and diffraction data (Acta Cryst F style crystallization report), and you happen to have the same crystal form and have solved the structure, is there an unspoken rule that you don't publish, or an amount of time that you wait to allow the other group to publish before you do? I am not talking about a high impact structure with a race to publish.
Just looking for a general consensus.
Thanks
Christine
Christine Lukacs, Ph.D.
Principal Scientist
Roche
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