It's All about Rejection

Recently a rarely studied kinesin comes to my attention. Kif15 was reported functioning in post-mitotic neurons. However, because its expressing profile is very close to kinesin-5, we suspect it also plays some roles during cell division.

By searching on PubMed, I wrote an email to a group in Osaka University, Japan, asking for anti-kif15 (HKLP2) antibody. I got their reply in the same day and was told the first author of that paper who now works in RIKEN will send me the antibody.

Then, two days later, I got another email. Here it is:

--

According to our policy, we're willing to share any published materials with anybody. But this time we can't do it since we don't hold any antibodies against Hklp2.

We are terribly sorry for this inconvenience and disappointment.

--

Hmm, should I believe that? Maybe they were telling the truth.

Their email triggers my curiosity that if someone asks reagents in your paper which you don't want to share with others, what will you do? or how to reject it?

Here are the tricks I know or have been through.

1. Ignorance - "Pretend you've never received that email"

2. Lies - "We want to send you the reagent but unfortunately we run out of it."

3. Trades - "I am also interested in your xxx, let's make a trade!"

4. Conditional pass - "We are happy to send the required material if you can add our names into the authorship line."

What else?

What will you do if you get such responses?