In a new public–private partnership, a large database of genetic polymorphisms in Arabidopsis thaliana, the standard model system for basic plant research, has become available to researchers worldwide http://www.arabidopsis.org/cereon. The database of more than 39,000 polymorphisms was developed by Cereon Genomics (Cambridge, MA), but the company has decided to make the data public through The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR), a collaborative project funded by the National Science Foundation (Washington, DC). Chris Somerville, director of plant biology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, explains that “no other organism has such a rich collection of polymorphisms accessible to the academic and nonprofit sector.” Cereon retains the rights to any commercial applications of the information in the database. A 10-year program http://www.arabidopsis.org/workshop1.html is also underway to assign functions to all Arabidopsis genes to develop a “virtual plant,” which could significantly accelerate research on economically important species.