Colin,

Speaking as someone who has one foot in small molecule crystallography
and the other in macromolecular, I have to say that attitudes are
completely different, and that there are good reasons for this. A PhD
student or junior postdoc in a macromolecular lab may have spent the
last three (or more) years cloning, expressing. purifying and
crystallizing a protein, and it is very likely that three or more groups
elsewhere in the world are working on the same target. Even if the
organisms are different, usually only one group will be able to publish
in a high-profile journal, so being scooped is a major worry and happens
frequently, even when all concerned are completely honest. A single
small molecule structure is a very much smaller part of the average
chemical PhD which often involves dozens of structures, and a couple of
duplicated structures will have little influence on the future career of
the PhD student.

Releasing the PDB hold on a structure just before submitting the paper
has something to be said for it. I would like to do this more often, but
it is usually vetoed by paranoid biological co-authors. Even if one is
providing the competition with a good MR model, at least they will have
to cite it.

George

On 04/19/2012 03:09 PM, Colin Groom wrote:
> It has always struck me as something of a surprise that pre-publication review of structures in protein-land 
differs so significantly from small molecule-land. One of the activities
of the CCDC is to supply pre-release
CSD structures to referees, using a simple, automated system to
establish that the requestors are referees.
This avoids the need for any involvement of the depositor or journal and
allows a centralised record to be kept
as to who saw which structures and when (although, to my knowledge, we
have never needed to refer to this).
In 2012,  requests have averaged at about 5 a day, but the real figure
is probably much higher, as some journals
provide this facility themselves. The sense I get from the
small-molecule community is that they (we) have a
great degree of well placed trust and see real value in pre-publication
review of structures, not just papers -
I'm sure this is true for the overwhelming majority of the
macromolecular world too.
> 
> Colin
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
> Sent: 19 April 2012 13:54
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Off-topic: Supplying PDB file to reviewers
> 
> This is off course a valid point. A desperate graduate student faking a
> structure risks his or hers career and reputation, while an anonymous
> referee, "borrowing" someone else's results gets away without any risk
> of being caught. Besides making the name of the reviewer public, I see
> other options:
> 
> 1) submit the coordinates and structure factors to the pdb to get a
> priority date as has been suggested before. Many journals require
> anyways a pdb code before acceptance of the paper. One could even
> publish this priority date in the paper in the footnote where the pdb
> code is mentioned.
> 2) require from referees a conflict-of-interest-statement that they, or
> close colleagues are not working on the same or a very similar
> structure. If an author gets the impression that he may have been
> scooped by a less-ethical referee, he could ask the journal to verify
> that the referees of his rejected paper were not involved in the
> accelerated publication. If it turns out that a referee has made a false
> statement this would clearly constitute fraud and a reason for
> repercussions.
> 
> Herman
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Jobichen Chacko
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:12 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Off-topic: Supplying PDB file to reviewers
> 
> Dear All,
> Here comes the problem of blind reveiw, the authors are always at the
> receving end to share all there data, results and now the full
> cordinates to an unknown person, just trusting the journal editor. Why
> don't the journals think about making the name of the reviewer also
> public.
> 
> Eventhough the persons advocated giving the cordinates, there were cases
> of holding the paper for reveiw for few months and finally rejecting it,
> while a very close article appeared as accelerated publn within few
> weeks of rejection of the original paper. Refer to the previous
> discussion on fake structure.
> 
> Again it depends on how close you are towards the acceptance. Also
> hesitation to give away your cordiantes without any guarantee of
> publishing it in that journal cannot be considered as a big sin,
> especially if someone's graduation is depend on a single paper.
> 
> Jobi
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 6:34 AM, Marc Kvansakul
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Dear CCP4BBlers,
>>
>> I was wondering how common it is that reviewers request to have a copy
> 
>> of the PDB coordinate file for the review purpose. I have just been 
>> asked to supply this by an editor after several weeks of review, after
> 
>> one of the reviewers requested a copy.
>>
>> Not having ever been asked to do this before I feel just a tad 
>> uncomfortable about handing this over...
>>
>> Your opinions would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Marc
>>
>> Dr. Marc Kvansakul
>> Laboratory Head, NHMRC CDA Fellow
>> Dept. of Biochemistry| La Trobe University | Bundoora Rm 218, Phys Sci
> 
>> Bld 4, Kingsbury Drive, Melbourne, 3086, Australia
>> T: 03 9479 2263 | F: 03 9479 2467 | E: [log in to unmask] |
>>
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