Everyone's Opinion on Offering MTAed Plasmids

[Josiah Zayner]

I have a decent collection of plasmids that have been obtained from a variety of sources. Some were obtained through other people and they signed of Materials Transfer Agreements (MTA), so technically I am already illegal. Usually these agreements state that the materials cannot be given to others without the other people also signing these MTAs. I guess I could collect MTAs from people and work with each institution that the plasmid is from to deliver those MTAs but the time and cost of that could be substantial.

From these MTAs what happens is that access to these plasmids, which in and of themselves have little or no value, becomes restricted both physically and monetarily.

At my Biohacking Store The ODIN, I want to start offering a wider variety of plasmids developed in Scientific labs but I am somewhat wary of the possible repercussions. Most strains I send to people for $5 + shipping, which is a far cry from the $65 of addgene. Do people think these plasmids and strains would be helpful? All of the plasmids were created through government funding and so should be available anyways? What repercussions are there? There are no monetary damages and such because the plasmids are published, non-patented and not offered by the university.

Example plasmids/strains:
A bacterial CRISPR/Cas9 system that includes a positive control
Different fluorescent proteins
&c.

Any help or insights would be appreciated.

Thanks,
     Josiah

[Koeng]

I have no legal background in this matter, but I would love to get my hands on some of these plasmids. I do a large range of synthetic biology and so almost all plasmids are somewhat useful to me. 

Mostly, I think that Cas9 plasmids would be useful for the community. However, I don't really know the ethical implications of distributing a Cas9 plasmid for mammalian or any eukaryotic cell... gene drives would be fairly easy to make with the proper resources. If that can't be developed, I am going to purify CRISPR1 from S thermo in a few weeks, which I can freely distribute to anyone. the pam (off the top of my head) is NNAGAAW, which should occur around once every 512 bp in contrast to NGG which occurs about once every 16bp. Mostly I'm doing it for the size of the Cas9, which is more than a kb smaller than the normally used Cas9

If you'd like, I could probably give you some plasmids I develop privately to distribute. But again, I don't know legal repercussions. It may spark debate once it begins happening.

-Koeng

[Nathan McCorkle]

Is there a specific format for an MTA? Maybe it could just be a checkbox on your checkout page?
"I agree to receive this matter, and won't give it to anyone that doesn't agree to accept it." or something?

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[Josiah Zayner]

Each university tends to have similar but different MTAs. Also, each MTA would need to be filed with the University the plasmid was created at I assume.

Thanks Koeng. Why not send me an email with a list of plasmids or strains you have.

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[Matt Lawes]

Perhaps the answer is a blanket waiver (like the check box idea) which says that recipient is DIYbio / indiebio / biomarker and materials will #1 not be used for commercial benefit #2 redistributed to others.

That should avoid any licensing issues. By creating the no commercial use clause the issue of "damages" becomes meaningless.
>matt

Josiah Zayner <josiah...@gmail.com> wrote:

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