Navigating COP16’s digital sequence information outcomes: What researchers need to do in practice

Muñoz-García, M., Bansal, K.C., Bao, Y., Brinkley, S.C., Buzan, E., Castle, D., Cepeda-Hernández, M.L., Correard, S., Crawford, A.J., Silva, J.M. da, Silva, M. da, Ekpe, S., El Fahime, E., Engelhardt, A., Faggionato, D., Haas, A.S., Hautea, D.M., Hossaert-McKey, M., Mazzoni, C.J., Jaspars, M., Katee, S., Kress, J., Kwarteng, A., Lijtmaer, D.A., Lee, S., Noriega, I.L., Lyal, C., Maharaj, G., McCartney, A.M., Miano, D., Mulema, J., Oliveira, G., Omesa, F.O., Orozco, P., Overmann, J., Poetsch, A., Prat, C., Raposo, D.S., Restrepo, S., Rhoden, F., Rouard, M., Serepa-Dlamini, M.H., Aguilera, M.A.S., Suzuki, M., Tiambo, C.K., Wiemers, M., Wong, L., Yu, E., Zambrano, M.M., Zhou, J. and Scholz, A.H. 2025. Navigating COP16’s digital sequence information outcomes: What researchers need to do in practice. Patterns 6(3): 101208.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity adopted new rules for sharing benefits from publicly available genetic sequence data, also known as digital sequence information (DSI). In this Opinion, the authors describe the key elements researchers need to be aware of, address real-life questions, and explain the practical implications of these rules for research and development.