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Open Source for Biotechnology
LarsWestergren writes "The Economist claims that Open Source is such a success for software development, the model should be used more often in areas such as biotechnology and bioinformatics. The similarity between open source and the academic process with their 'you share, I share' principles is shown by the human genome project. The paper argues that this process should be used for instance to developing medicines unburdened by patents, useful especially for third world countries or diseases that affect relatively few people, where medical corporations have previously thought that the cost of research have not been worth it."
I'd say that the human genome is fairly open source.
Tho I can see Darl McShyster trying to claim that since everyone's DNA is 99.99% similar to his it must have been copied and we all need to buy $399 Life Licences...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Which is probably why something like this will never be allowed to happen now that people have seen how successful open source is.
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Open sourcing discoveries in bio-tech would lead to reduced research costs, reduced development times and ultimatly reduced prices of drugs.
..GNU for biotech
It will also by extendtion lead to more competition in the bio-tech industry, which can only be a good thing. And it will lead to more consumer scrutiny of what were popping into our bodies.
This is a good idea all round. Except of course for the biotech monopolies who...
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May the Maths Be with you!
So, when some of the strange, undocumented side effects of this open-source medication turns you blue, do you think the average Ethiopian will have net-access to go crawling through some message boards looking for a fix? Just kiddin' yo, but I couldn't resist.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
This is an argument that Steven Weber makes in The Success of Open Source, which I reviewed recently. For more info, check out the list of reviews I've put together. While it's possible that the Economist thought of the idea on its own, I'm disappointed they didn't at least mention his previous work.
....i.e., right here. Looks sort of GForge-ish, although with frames and a custom theme and such-like...
The Army reading list
The Human Brain project funds neuroinformatics projects, many of which are released under free or open source licenses.
Open-source software? No problem. Unencumbered research? No problem, and I assume non-profit organizations or government sources are paying. However, as I like my drugs tested before taking them, who other than these non-profits will pay the cost to test the proto-drugs?
No patent protection = no profits. No profit = no investment, and no desire to fund tests.
The simple truth is that patents really are a lie about free market economics. They treat it like it's a physical property, but it's not. If millions of people use my car it deprives me use of it in a serious way, but if millions of people use the same invention - then just the opposite happens. The inventor is not only able to keep and use his original invention however he wants, but also now has huge forces contributing to it's improvement.
... they paid for those slaves God blessed, surely that alone shows slavery is good, and the negros have been saved from their barbaric condition" ....
... etc. - it really causes one to think.
If the government gave someone a monopoly on making cars, because they didn't have an incentive to make cars when other people can make them too - most of us would see that as crap. Market share isn't an inherent property right. If the government gave someone a monopoly on growing oranges, on the premise that they wouldn't have an incentive to grow oranges if other people could too - most people would see that as crap too. But for some reason, that logic breaks down when it comes to invention.
Finally, looking back on history to paraphrase "look at the great wealth and prosperity of the plantation system, the grand architecture, the vast and rich land, the free markets
I wish I could say that patents are causing less harm, but when they recently lokcked out 10's of millions of Africans dying of AIDS from getting generics because "they had no incentive", because patents are "a property right", becasue "the wealth of the pharmasutical industry in the US is proof that patents work"
Communism and Open Source do sound similar (in their principles). The parent (was probably a troll) but only because they knew that everyone would see them saying "sounds like something bad to me" instead of "sounds like communism to me." Communism isn't necessarily bad. I was thinking in the shower (before I saw this article) that communism is a set-up where everyone benefits by the greater good of the community. This works by making sure everyone can benefit from the efforts of individuals. Sounds like Open Source doesn't it?
I second this. They'll want to hang to what they consider proprietary knowledge. Folks will (have already) argue that in science (especially genomics) all related knowledge belong to all of us because it is part of us. That argument makes sense to me, but as long as a company acquires such information without sharing it, it is still "proprietary" in a certain sense.
In bio-business there is a big dis-incentive to sharing information as they are out for the greater good of their stockholders first, humankind second. In acedemia, you would think there would be much incentive for sharing, but that is not always true. It depends greatly on the funding model of the institution or project. Many university studies are funded by industry with the understanding that any resultant patents would be assigned to the people holding the purses to commercialize as they wish. Other projects remain even more proprietary in the sense that nothing is patented but kept as a internal IP.
Having these types of projects being "open source" is a very good idea. The exchanged and access of information will not only allow more people to work on a project but for medicines it would in theory make them safer. Instead of having to take a drug companies word about a product you would have direct access to all the research and testing of said product from the beginning to the end.
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This open source idea for medicine and science would run into the same problem that open source software runs into. Greed.
People trying to get more money because they think they are entitled to it. Some examples would be Microsoft and SCO.
CEO Darl McBride who is at the helm of The SCO Group is leading the charge so to speak against open source software with claims to owning rights. Honestly most people realize this is a bid for them to be either bought out or to gain money from legal battles. This strategy is employed because it has the potentional to make money. SCO having not really made any innovations and in a steady decline over the years in terms of revenue and stock value has choosen this path. Now personally I think it was McBride's idea based on his track record with IKON Office Solutions. But then again the shady nature of SCO and it's parent company (explained here: http://www.forbes.com/2003/06/18/cz_dl_0618linux.
Microsoft on the other hand was sued due to a patent being violated by their Internet Explorer web browser. Reference here: http://news.com.com/Microsoft+appeals+Eolas+decis
Not to get into a rant about IP and software Patents but both of these cases show how money can be obtained through legal matters instead of the time honored method of working for it. No matter which way either case goes the problem is with old laws and ideas messing up the free (as in beer) trade of ideas and information.
Hopefully in the science field something like the above examples would not happen but there is always a chance. Big drug companies would not go quietly into the night if their development processes suddenly became public access and with more competition driving overall prices down. Big business loves to stay as BIG business.
Personally the idea behind "open source" science and medicine is very sound and will help many people in the long term. I just hope the process of it becoming free is less painful than the software industry.
Push harder towards Open Media/Content
I don't think this will work, and let me tell you why. First off, let me preface this by saying that my wife is a soon-to-be pharmacologist, so while I may not have any firsthand knowledge of this, she knows what she is talking about.
1) The cost of research for pharmacology is infinitely (no not literally) more expensive than it is for computer science. In most research for CS you just have to pay for cost of equipment (basic computers typically costing a hell of a lot less than the specialized machines used in development of medicine) and the salary of the researcher. A lot of CS research can be done by one person. For pharmacology you have the cost of equipment (or even the USE of it, sometimes they have to rent time on more uncommon machines; this happens in CS as well, but not nearly as often since it's mainly for the processing power) as well as the cost of the researcher AND his/her assistants. It's almost impossible to do good research in medicine by one's self because of...
2) It takes freaking forever. The number of steps required to find out if a proposed theory for a molecule even has a chance for working is phenomenal. My wife has spent the past few months trying to see if a certain molecule will bond with an AIDS neutralizer. Mind you, this is just the first step. Even if this step does work (which they don't know yet) they don't know if this molecule will a) bond with the aids virus b) will it bond long enough to neutralize? c) if it does bond, will the neutralizing agent be able to reach the virus? or will it be blocked by the bonding molecule? And the list goes on. No pharmacologist who does this for a living is going to volunteer even MORE time out of their lives for no pay. So we'll pay them right?
3) Funding. Right now almost all pharmacology is financed by companies that already have patents or by third party investors. These people invest money into these projects because they expect a profit as return. Yes, I'm sure they also care for the well-being of others, but they do need to recover their costs if a drug succeeds. A vast majority of projects fail, which is why a lot of specialized medicines cost so much. These companies need to stay alive in order to do more research. And don't even talk to me about Federalizing the research. That would be pretty much the dumbest thing ever.
I'm sure there are holes in my argument, but hopefully this will at least provide food for thought and further discussion. Basically, I just don't see it happening.
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No offense man, but that is fucking insane.
My wife manages clinical trials and the amount of oversight is crazy. The hospital had to call her at 1:05 AM so she could approve a change in dosing a patient because the nurse was literally 5 minutes late in adminstering the drug because the protocol said "administer at 1 AM."
The point is, biotech costs a ridiculous amount of money. And even "the best in the world" aren't going to give up their research for free.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
1) Developing new drug products requires substantial, very expensive facilities, while the hard costs of software development are very low.
2) Drugs must go through a long and expensive testing and regulatory process before being released to the market. Open Source software simply wouldn't exist if it cost millions of dollars and took several years before you could release it.
3) There are massive costs associated with product liability in drugs - no one would give away software if the same liability exposure existed.
4) For every drug that makes it to market, there are dozens to hundreds that don't make it through the process but incur the costs of development anyway. The unsuccessful attempts are subsidized by the successful ones.
While I think that the sharing of information in biotech is generally a good thing, I don't think the economics mesh with a software-like "open source" model.
The Economist is usually very good in its bioscience articles. This article is completely abyssmal - the person who wrote it has absolutely no understanding of how scientific research works. and that is not flamebait but the sad truth
First of all, we are a bio-informatics lab - all the software we produce is open source. This is not the exception but the rule.
The motivation behind our research is not profit and again, in academia that is the rule not the exception.
The article states that if aspirin were the cure for cancer - it would not be developed because there would be no profit. If that is true then it is a reflection, not of a flawed scientific research model but rather a flawed biotech/pharmaceutical model
Researchers like myself would be looking into it - because it would be INTERESTING and scientifically important regardless of whether it would be profitable.
Basic scientific research is done by publicly funded labs like ours. The results are freely communicated. Biotech companies use our results to make money (and rightly so) but in the end do very little basic research - because, as the article says, - it does not pay. However let us not get the two confused as our poor "science" writer did. The NIH funding model may not be perfect- for example there is probably too much emphasis on western diseases like cancer rather than third world problems like malaria - which sort of creeped into the article. And it is appalling that we have 10 versions of Viagra rather than cheaper generic chemotherapy alternatives but the blame for that does not lie with the lack of basic research but further down in the R and D food chain.
This is already happening. Behold PLOS Biology, the Biology journal of the Public Library of Science. This has been around for some years and was started up by Michael Eisen of the Eisen lab at Lawrence Berkeley. As Slashdot history will attest, I found the original introduction of the PLOS to be insipiring and in fact it led me to take up my current career in natural language processing (because someone has to search through all that science!). I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Eisen at a presentation he made at VANBUG recently, and he was very enthusiastic about hearing that NLP people are interested in working on searching and managing open science information, so I again urge you to help out projects like the PLOS (not just Biology, although that's the only current journal).
The Signal/Noise ratio can be improved in two ways. Remaining silent is the OTHER way.