ARTNet Public Access and Data Sharing Policy

The Acquired Resistance to Therapy Network (ARTNet) is a Cancer MoonshotSM consortium to conduct collaborative research focused on innovative strategies to understand and combat mechanisms of tumor resistance (intrinsic or acquired) and/or to exploit tumor sensitivity to anti-cancer therapies. The ARTNet is a critical preclinical component to NCI’s clinical drug development and its research has clear translational potential to inspire and aid the development of novel therapeutic strategies in clinical settings.

The ARTNet recognizes that collaborative scientific research depends on unhindered information flow and that future research must be able to build on previous discoveries. To this end, the ARTNet is committed to making resulting publications and to the extent possible, the underlying primary data immediately and broadly available to the public. The ARTNet will conform to the proper balance of open-access, open-source, open-data sharing policies advocated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Office of Data Sharing (ODS), including the National Institute of Health (NIH) Data Sharing Policy, the NIH Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) Policy, and the Cancer Moonshot Public Access and Data Sharing Policy.

Release of Publications

  • The electronic copies of Publications will be deposited in PubMed Central with proper tagging of metadata to ensure online discoverability and accessibility within four weeks of acceptance by a journal.

  • Publications will be Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License (CC BY 4.0) or an equivalent license, or otherwise dedicated to the public domain (e.g., Creative Commons public domain tool, CC0).

  • Publications will be made publicly available immediately without any embargo period.

  • The ARTNet Coordination Center (CC) will track the publications from ARTNet and post the latest updates into the ARTNet Web Portal.     

Data Sharing

  • Underlying Primary Data for the Publications will be made broadly available through an appropriate data repository under the NCI Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC), or (with the approval granted by the ARTNet Steering Committee) a similar NIH-designated repository that conforms with the principles articulated in this Policy.

  • If the research involves human subjects, as defined by 45 C.F.R. 46, the privacy rights of participants and confidentiality of their data will be protected and maintained in accordance with 45 C.F.R. 46 and other applicable laws and regulations.

    • Underlying Primary Data will be de-identified according to the standards set forth in the HHS Regulations for the Protection of Human Subjects to ensure that the identities of research subjects cannot be readily ascertained with the data.

    • Underlying Primary Data will also be stripped of identifiers according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule

    • Underlying Primary Data that are free of identifiers but contain sensitive information are immediately released with no fee for access but are deposited in controlled access repositories of CRDC with similar policies to dbGaP (e.g., the controlled access repository will have an independent data access committee and no financial incentives for limiting access to datasets).

    • Before submitting Underlying Primary Data, ARTNet awardees through their Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), privacy boards, or equivalent bodies, will assess the informed consent materials to determine whether the Underlying Primary Data may be shared as contemplated in this Policy.

  • The ARTNet CDMC will coordinate with the ARTNet awardees to deposit the Underlying Primary Data for the Publications into an appropriate data repository under the NCI CRDC. The request of ARTNet Data Sharing support is available through the ARTNet Support Desk