The MapSeq/pf project is primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust, a charity based in the UK, which is currently bearing most of the sequencing costs. We also receive funds from other bodies, notably the UK Medical Research Council, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in the USA.

MapSeq/pf is, first and foremost, a community of collaborating investigators who are pooling resources in the fight against malaria. One of our primary objectives is to facilitate important biological discoveries by providing access to large-scale data from multiple geographical regions, so that epidemiological phenomena can be identified through data analysis.

To fulfill these objectives, we wish to make as much genotyping data as possible available to the public through the MapSeq/pf website. Our funders support such free availability of the data, and impose it as a condition for their financial support. At the same time, we also respect the wishes and rights of collaborators who put substantial efforts in the collection and submission of samples, and who should be given priority in using the data to investigate their own research questions. In these initial stage of the project, genotyping data for most of the samples is only viewable to the investigators who submitted these samples, and to their collaborators. Gradually, the data shall be released to the public, under an agreement that protects the intellectual rights of the investigators, especially their right to publish using their data, and to be appropriately credited by researchers that use the data. This agreement will follow the principles set up at the Fort Lauderdale Meeting organized by the Wellcome Trust in 2003 to discuss pre-publication data release.

For the time being, we are pleased to offer public access to 6 samples that have kindly been made public by their submitters: two clinical isolates from UK travelers, one isolate from Ghana, and three reference isolates from the Sanger Institute.

Please note that access to the genotyping data is not required for all types of analysis: you can perform PCA analysis to visualize population structure of any set of the 189 samples in our database, since this type of analysis does not reveal the details of their genotypes.

Many partners contributed the samples currently available at MapSeq/pf. Within MapSeq, you can find out details of the submitting partner for each sample. They are listed here, in no particular order:

Kenya	Alexis Nzila, Steffen Borrmann	KEMRI, Kilifi, Kenya
Mali	Abdoulaye Djimde	U of Bamako, Mali.
Burkina Faso	Jean-Bosco Ouedraogo	IRSS, Burkina Faso
Ghana	Sanjeev Krishna	St George's, London, UK
Sudan	David Arnot	U of Copenhagen, Denmark
Thailand	Francois Nosten	SMRU, Mae Sot, Thailand
Cambodia	Su Xin-zhuan	NIAID, Bethesda, USA
Papua New Guinea	Pascal Michon	PNG IMR, Papua New Guinea
UK (clinical samples from travelers)	Colin Sutherland	LSHTM, London, UK
Reference samples	Chris Newbold	WTSI, Hinxton, UK

Of course, the MapSeq/pf project is always very happy to hear from investigators who want to become part of community. If you want to send us samples, or participate in other ways to this effort, please contact Bronwyn McInnis (bm2@sanger.ac.uk).