Frequently Asked Questions - DArT Technology
- How was Diversity Arrays (DArT) technology developed?
- Who developed DArT technology?
- Who is using and improving DArT technology?
- Is DArT Pty. Ltd. a private company? How is it related to CAMBIA?
- What are the open source license conditions relevant to DArT technology?
- Can DArT technology be used to make a profit?
How was Diversity Arrays (DArT) technology developed?
The Diversity Arrays or DArT technology was developed in CAMBIA laboratories, then funded by revenues from licensing the E.coli gusA gene for plant research. As with the GUS technology, CAMBIA committed to making the DArT technology widely available to all who will agree to maintain open access to the capability to use and improve it, regardless of ability to pay.
Diversity Arrays were developed and patent claims were structured in order to provide a work-around to some of the many barriers to wide use of other types of genomic marker technology. Some of these barriers include high costs per marker and multiple patent rights owned by licensors who charge high fees or who do not make licenses available.
The DArT technology, in contrast, has been made available through open source provisions in agreements available to everyone who agrees to share. Since publication, most of the patent applications have been abandoned in order to make all the data and uses available within the public domain.
Who developed DArT technology?
A proof of concept paper using rice was published in 2001 by the CAMBIA-based team that developed this technology:
Jaccoud D, Peng K, Feinstein D, Kilian A, "Diversity Arrays: a solid state technology for sequence information independent genotyping". Nucleic Acids Research 29(4): 25-31
Andrzej Kilian, the inventor on the patent applications, was a principal scientist at CAMBIA, who before taking up a full-time position in the private sector to commercialise DArT technology, was a co-supervisor of several CAMBIA-based Ph.D. students who have been doing further work to apply DArT technology to species such as rice. Findings from this research will be added to the Improvements pages whenever further publications are prepared and made available. The first author of this foundation publication, Damian Jaccoud, has gone on to contribute further work on DArT technology in his Ph.D. thesis. Kaiman Peng worked at CAMBIA under a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, the support of which we gratefully acknowledge.
Who is using and improving DArT technology?
Farmers and plant breeders in Australia have supported more development of DArT technology. This has been made possible through proposals funded to CAMBIA by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC), Horticulture Australia, and Monticello Research.
Many of the patent applications were purposely abandoned after publication, to allow the technology into the public domain. Subject to the option of the inventors there are still patents in a few countries, which may be used under non-exclusive open source licenses. The "open source" provision is intended to allow all users of the technology to reap the benefit of each others' use and improvement of the technology.
Additional research using DArT technology has been reported by groups based in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Sri Lanka, Brasil, Mexico and South Africa. It has been used on plant species ranging from barley to Eucalyptus. DArT technology has also been used in studies not involving plants, including studies of otters and an important pathogen of banana.
Is DArT Pty. Ltd. a private company? How is it related to CAMBIA?
DArT Pty. Ltd. is a private company founded by former CAMBIA scientist Andrzej Kilian. Although CAMBIA and other private sources and government funding supported and subsidised the founding of this private company, DArT Pty. Ltd. is no longer related directly to CAMBIA. We are keen to see businesses like this succeed in delivering technology that will be useful.
What are the open source license conditions relevant to DArT technology?
In summary, in return for permission to use the technologies, a licensee institution agrees to allow and encourage its employees and students to post any improvements made to the technologies on a public website. The licensee institution also agrees not to assert any intellectual property rights to the improvements against other licensees.
All licensees that comply with these license terms are allowed to use the technology for research, public good, and/or commercial product development.
Can DArT technology be used to make a profit?
Royalty-free licenses are available to both for-profit and non-profit entities. CAMBIA believes that hunger in many parts of the world can be alleviated not only by providing tools to public good researchers in those communities, but also by removing barriers to micro, small and medium enterprise.
IBM, Nokia, Sun and other IT companies have shown that hardware and software technology can be non-exclusively and open-source licensed and simultaneously generate profitability in a for-profit company. DArT technology provides an example of our attempt to support open-source business models using wet science rather than IT. CAMBIA has already non-exclusively licensed its patents on DArT technology to private companies, collaborations, and research institutes to develop DArT genotyping services for a variety of crops including rice, barley, wheat and apple.
Anyone who agrees to the terms of the license is free to develop and use DArT technology and services, for research or to make a profit.
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