Issue date: 1/22/08 Section: News

Soon, a pricey subscription won't be required to read the latest advances in scientific research.

A public-access law signed by President Bush on Dec. 26 makes it mandatory for scientists receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health to put a copy of their peer-reviewed manuscripts in an online NIH archive, pubmedcentral.com, upon acceptance to a publication.

The manuscripts will then be made available online to the public within 12 months of the work's publication. Scientists who don't submit their manuscripts will risk losing future NIH funding.

The mandate represents a change from the voluntary program enacted by the NIH in 2005. Under that program, only about 5 percent of scientists deposited their manuscripts.

Public access to this research will benefit both the scientific and the nonscientific communities, said Adrienne Martin, a Philosophy professor and bioethicist at Penn.

One major concern of research participants, she said, was that subjects would volunteer but rarely find out the results, especially in projects studying less-severe drug regimens, such as the effects of taking ibuprofen daily.

"Making this available publicly online is a major step forward," she said.

Penn researchers also see benefits for scientists in the online archive.

"The big plus is that if I'm doing a research project, I can do it all online through one simple interface," said Tom Curran, a professor at the School of Medicine.

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