Sir

The International Society for Computational Biology (http://www.iscb.org) wishes to express regret and concern about the decision by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to shut down the PubScience web site (see Nature 411, 980; 2001 and Nature 418, 805; 2002). Unfortunately this decision came to our attention too late to comment before the DOE's official deadline passed.

Free access to scientific knowledge and data is essential to scientific progress. Free access to publicly funded databases such as PubScience, PubMed, Medline and GenBank reflects the public's role in funding the science that led to these data, and provides a cost-effective means for disseminating information to the scientific community. It is essential to future progress in scientific research that these public information resources remain freely accessible.