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Leprosy Genome Decoded
xpccx writes "There's an article on Wired about a team of Anglo-French scientists that have "...sequenced the genetic map of the leprosy bacterium which could point to new ways to diagnose and treat the disfiguring disease that strikes 700,000 people every year." It's interesting to note that the scientists discovered that "...the bacterium that causes leprosy seems to have lost nearly half of its nonessential genes, more than any other organisms studied so far." This research was published in Nature."
Ok, I'll bite.
Maybe if scientists cooperated (in an open source style) instead of hoarding their knowledge for the likes of Hoffman-LaRoche, Wellcome etc, the breakthroughs would come sooner.
...And this is precisely what publication is for. The goal of a scientist is to publish as many papers as possible to gain prestige (and associated benefits like money). Once a work is published, anyone else can see what the scientist did and build on it. Science is one of the few disciplines where there _is_ a direct incentive to share work.
I bet if they gave biotech grad students this 'source' to leprosy, they would come up with a fix pretty damn quick. With many eyes all bugs are shallow.
You've obviously never done research. Or coded on a complex project. More eyes are often helpful, but the eyes' owners must _understand_ the problem.
Furthermore, it's the biotech grad students that are _doing_ the research! Professors come up with project ideas based on their own readings and past research and the input of their students, and then hire as many students as they can get their hands on to implement the projects for them. This is how (university-based) research _works_.
Please spend a few minutes researching before posting.