Nectagen

Nectagen oversees and manages its community of users to facilitate the productive exchange of data and expertise.

In managing this community, Nectagen operates under the following guiding principles: 

Openness.  Applications data are available to the public without requiring a fee or sign-up.

Transparency. Whenever possible, the steps used to develop and manufacture products, generate data and review entries are documented and visible.  

Accessibility.  Any published reagents containing Nectagen technologies must be made broadly available to the scientific community for non-profit research purposes. 

Accountability. Users are accountable to other users and Nectagen for their behavior within the community.

Data Integration. Nectagen will link entries in its database to public sources such as UniProKB, PubMed, and the Gene Ontology Consortium. Whenever possible, Nectagen will use open standards instead of proprietary ones. 

Efficiency.   Nectagen seeks to enable users to make rapid and effective decisions about purchase and use and to maximize the chances that its reagents will yield a productive result. Nectagen believes that gathering, organizing and presenting as much applications data as possible as efficiently and effectively as possible will improve the overall productivity of the community's research. 

Standardization. Nectagen will establish, maintain and encourage standard nomenclature and formats to make searching and using its database easier.

Neutrality.  With respect to outside vendors, Nectagen maintains a neutral position so that members can evaluate the suitability of outside material on its own merits, typically based on whether another member has used the material successfully in a similar application.  

These principles underlie some of Nectagen's distinctive policies.

Full disclosure of contributor identity. When contributing or reviewing submissions, users must disclose their true identity and present a public profile that allows other users to assess their qualifications. Reviews in the Nectagen community are attributed to individuals because Nectagen believes that benefits of openness and accountability outweigh the protection of anonymity.

Disclosure of original data. In the spirit of transparency, for processed images, Nectagen requires original, unprocessed data to be submitted along with the final figure. Other users will have the opportunity to assess the appropriateness of any manipulation and make their own observations based on the raw data.

Negative data.  Nectagen will promote the publication of negative data to help the community avoid redundant efforts.  Submitters and reviewers will receive the same amount of user points for high quality positive or negative data.  

Published reagents. Published reagents that users derive from Nectagen technology must be made freely available to the research community.  DNA and amino acid sequences must be disclosed to facilitate reproduction and extension of findings with the derived technology.    

Referencing Nectagen lot numbers in publications. Nectagen assigns lot numbers to its products to promote reproducibility and traceability. Users are asked to reference lot numbers in publications to facilitate the integration their findings into Nectagen's community.

Self-made products. Nectagen allows and enables non-profit researchers to make their own versions of Nectagen's products with a nominal handling fee for plasmids. Researchers may make their own determination about whether Nectagen creates sufficient value to justify its prices.  In publications, Nectagen expects authors using self-made products to enable other researchers to replicate their production and to avoid implying that Nectagen manufactured or performed quality control procedures on the self-made product. 

Label license.  For non-profit customers, Nectagen sells its products under a label license that obligates purchasers to provide non-profit users and Nectagen with freedom to use any derived technology. For for-profit customers, Nectagen restricts the use of its products to research use and requires the payment of an additional fee.