Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Cancer, Cats, ICANN
Australia's mystery cat demystified. Bitsy Boffin writes "Back in October Slashdot ran a story from the Herald Sun about the shooting of a mystery "Big Cat" in Australia. At the time the tail (the only part the hunter brought back) of said cat had been sent off for DNA testing. The Herald Sun reports the findings of those DNA tests which show that the mystery cat wasn't a leopard or jaguar, just a really, really big feral cat."
US backs Microsoft in Korean antitrust case. CODiNE writes "Stating that 'Korea's remedy goes beyond what is necessary or appropriate to protect consumers' the Justice Department's antitrust division rejects the recent Korean FTC ruling. 'Sound antitrust policy should protect competition, not competitors, and must avoid chilling innovation and competition even by "dominant" companies.'"
RedHat follows Indian investment trend. An anonymous reader writes "After several other companies have decided to invest in the Indian economy it looks like RedHat will be following suit. According to the article, RedHat plans on hiring about 300 people for an investment of about $20M."
ICANN community slams VeriSign deal. Rob writes to tell us that an overwhelming amount of the ICANN community recently took a stand against a proposed deal that would allow VeriSign to raise the price of .com domain names by up to 50%. VeriSign accused ICANN of illegally "regulating" its business. ICANN had previously blocked services VeriSign wanted to launch on the grounds that they would harm the stability of the internet.
Clinical results from cancer-killing virus. just___giver writes "Results from human clinical trials show that terminally ill patients with aggressive metastasized cancer are receiving benefit from the recently covered virus that kills cancer when it is administered intravenously. They still have higher doses to test in this ongoing study. This safe, naturally occurring, unmodified virus has a remarkable ability to infect and kill cancer cells, without affecting normal, healthy cells. Numerous other third party studies show that the Reovirus should be an important discovery in the treatment of 2/3 of all human cancers. It is patented, easy to manufacture in large quantities, and even increases the effectiveness of conventional chemo and radiation therapy. Numerous phase 2 studies are being planned for 2006." OncolyticsBiotech also has a short video describing the process.
In the ever hot battle to be included in the Oxford American Online Dictionary (login reqd.), Podcast beat out Lifehack and Rootkit (It will be added in 2006)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A cheap, easy cure for cancer? No. It's Patented. It'll still be horribly expensive.
I am an Army of 1 in 10
From the photos that were taken of the hunter with the catch, I find it hard to believe that a "domestic" style cat could ever get that large. It was huge! Damned, I better watch what I say around Shady. Come here Shady, OMG NO!
put the what in the where?
Well, I guess that they won't be that far below the poverty line.
A plagarist trolls slashdot so badly, they even get a story posted.
Beatles-Beatles is a scammer that used slashdot to promote his own site.
These are the real interesting stories that slashback neglected to tell you about.
Feel free to add more updates here.
and must avoid chilling innovation and competition even by "dominant" companies.'
"...and by 'chilling innovation' I mean producing actual software products rather than stealing them, buying their companies, or employing grossly underpaid engineers to copy them."
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
How do you patent a naturally occuring virus?
I guess I really don't understand the purpose of a patent. If it is a naturally occurring, unmodified virus, why on Earth should you be able to patent it? But I suppose if they can patent the human genome...
Or is it really the application of this virus as cancer therapy that's been patented?
Really cool info on the virus. I've always thought that they're a significantly underinvestigated and underestimated part of biology. Taking over, changing, and otherwise messing with cells in ways that we just can't otherwise do - and there are untold trillions of trillions of trillions of them at it every minute of the day. There's so much potential there for both beneficial and evil purposes, and such flexibility.
:)
But hey, real and significant news about a possible cure for many cancers gets relegated to last mention in a list containing:
a really long cat's tail! OMG!
The US getting involved in the internal affairs of another country (as much as I agree with what they're saying, it's not their business)
Yet another boring international outsourcing press release
More ICANN soap drama.
I guess others have different ideas of what's important in the world.
They say 65cm is twice the largest recorded domestic cat tail. That's about 26", so they are saying 13" is the record longest cat's tail? I don't have a cat handy, but that's just silly, I know my old cat had a tail longer than 13" and she was a normal sized 8 lb Siamese.
WTF?
It is patented, easy to manufacture in large quantities, and even increases the effectiveness of conventional chemo and radiation therapy.
Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.
But seriously. If it's 'naturally occuring' and easy to manufacture, how the hell do they have a patent on this? I'm a hardcore capitalist, but being as how this could be the holy grail of modern medicine, I think the government definitely needs to step in to make sure us mere mortals can afford it (no pun intended).
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
1) Is there any chance of the virus mutating and becoming more difficult for normal cells to kill?
2) In patients that are also undergoing chemo or radiation, will their suppressed immune systems make the virus more dangerous?
I'm not a doctor or biologist or anything, so if someone more knowledgeable has any clue on this please post. I'm just going off of what is in the article, video and the list of clinical trials they're doing. I see that they're doing one trial of the virus + rads, so I guess the answer to #2 will be coming up soon.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
It's just a COUS.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
However, I have to admit that I am a bit trouble by this being patented. It is naturally occuring, easy to create, etc. The only thing that could possibly complicate this is a greedy corporation who has the patent and wants to enforce it and make tons of money. So rather than use government and philanthropist and charity money to cure a LOT of cancer, this company will be making billions off of a potentially life saving natural drug.
Now of course none of this has happened yet...but I won't be too surprised if it does.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/document s/appxl_35_U_S_C_101.htm
http://www.european-patent-office.org/legal/epc/e/ ar52.html / ar53.html
http://www.european-patent-office.org/legal/epc/e
Thank you for your comments, US government. Now keep your nose the fuck out of other countries' business.
Seriously. Whenever another country dares to suggest that the US government has done something wrong, we get page after page of whining about how nobody has any right to tell the USA what to do. But does the US respect other countries' sovereignty? Grief, no. That's different.
Sound antitrust policy should protect competition, not competitors, and must avoid chilling innovation and competition even by "dominant" companies.'"
OK, I suppose they are arguing against helping specific competitors vs encumbering the company such that it cannot provent competition (without chilling their ability to compete?). That almost makes sense, but we have to keep in mind that specific competitors were harmed. And since when is microsoft a "dominant" company, with the quotes?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I'm not one of the people always yelling about advertisements maquerading as stories. (Either it's interesting or it isn't.) But I would be astonished if this ludicrous overhyping of a moderately interesting Phase I result from a small-cap biotech isn't being submitted by someone with a financial interest in the stock.
Results like this are daily occurrences, and if this site is going to start flogging particular ones as being the cure for "2/3 of all human cancers" I should submitting my own. After buying the stock, of course.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
RedHat follows Indian investment trend
Is that what people are calling outsourcing now?
-Adam
Even McDonalds is investing in India now.(100 million dollars approx)
Article
So all you guys hoping that you can get a job at McDonalds asking "Do you want fries with that"... think again;);););).
You insensitive clods!
Seriously though, when my total mutt of a moggy has just had a skin graft and is about to undergo chemotherapy, I have to start to wonder - am I taking this too far? He's so cuddly though.
Sorry, I now return you to your regular trolling.
..and I'll form the head!!
And it's an unmodofied naturally occuring virus. Been around for meninum. May even be responsiable for some of the unexplained "miracle" cancer curse. But now somehow it's patented.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It's nature verses Steve Irwin down here you know. Eventually we're likely to have Bilby's that feed on cattle.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
This safe, naturally occurring, unmodified virus... is patented Can't God or Darwin or somebody claim prior art on this? Pardon me while I file a patent on EVERY existing genome... I'll own EVERYTHING!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Ummm, Bruce, could I see you in my office for a minute? Great.
Bruce, I appreciate your enthusiam. I really do. It's really great. But, you know, there is a lot of work to do in the office. Stuff related to US antitrust law. It'd be really great if you could spend more time worrying about enforcing our laws and judgements, and less worrying about Korea. 'Cuz, umm, that's what the taxpayers are kinda paying ya for. We on the same page here? Great. Well, back to it then.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
So it's a little big. Feh. I won't be impressed until we have mutant cats that can shoot lasers out of their eyes, or sprout wings, or that can freeze the water out of the air or something like that.
The... X-Cats!
And the brethren went away edified.
Come on mods, I almost spit my beer on my keyboard after reading that post. Knock it up some!
That might really suck, no?
> virii
*facepalm*
C'mon, people, we have a posting about cancer nearly being cured, and the postings that get modded up are jokes about the cat. Typical Slashdot.
Grow up, people, and maybe everyone else will take us seriously as a demographic.
S.
For what it's worth, my wife and I were biking in a state park in central Florida about 5 years ago and encountered some sort of feline creature, tan colored, about the size of a large dog, almost waist high. We turned around and hastened in the opposite direction.
We inquired at the nature center. The ranger assured us that there was no such animal endemic to the region. We have no idea what it was we saw.
I'm curious about this. I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience in Florida or elsewhere.
mt
Seriously, that the US government supports a US company (Microsoft) in a despute in a foreign country, is as much a news story as my grandma getting her daily bath.
In other - just as important news - I woke up this morning and had breakfest.
That is truely big. Honestly, I dont think any one would believe they could get that big unless someone saw it for them selves.
This is basicly a ferral demostic cat big enough to eat a human!!!
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
And of course the "investment" capital comes from "cashing in" "investments" in the US. That is, if by "cashing in" I really mean "Laying Off".... and for all intents and purposes, not hiring a US worker to hire one in India is essentially the same as laying one off, except that they were never hired in the first place to be laid off..
OK, RedHat is gettting 300 programmers for $20 million "over several years" or "in the next 2 to 3 years".
IBM is getting 3000 programmers for $1.7 billion "over 4 years".
So for 10 times as many programs for 2 times as many years, IBM is paying 85 times as much money (as opposed to 20 times).
Someone at IBM needs to figure out why it's costing them 4.25 times as much for the same thing RedHat is buying... IBM appears to be paying ~$142,000 per job per year, whicle RedHat is only paying ~33,500 per job per year (assuming that's only 2 years for RedHat).
-- Terry
Florida panther? Google "Florida Panther" then click Images. I got 244,000 hits on the text and 2800 on the images. If so you saw a very rare beast. I've lived here about 15 years, spent a lot of time "in the woods" & never seen one.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
The original Herald Sun article has been arcived. I would suggest checking out the snops.com article. At the bottom is a follow up from October where they think it's a fake.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Viruses are interesting. I once read an article about bacteriophage viruses - how in the Soviet Union they used them to treat bacterial infections instead of antibiotics. The Russian researcher said that if they didn't find a promising virus, they'd go down to the river, get a new bucket of water, and start looking again. This implies there are a lot of viruses out there to examine!
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
I sent the link to my friend who's a cancer researcher, and this was his response:
good concept, but i don't think that it is a real solution for all cancers. while the concept of viral delivery is what most gene therapeutics aims for, selectivity is often a problem. it is interesting that this company uses reovirus to administer 2-aminopurine to cells to inhibit the ras pathway, which is often upregulated in cancer cells. the other problem is that this technique absolutely cannot be used on immunocompromised patients that have cancer (e.g., an AIDS patient with Kaposi's sarcoma, or an organ transplant patient who happens to be unlucky enough to develop cancer while under immune suppression therapy--a common method for organ transplant procedures). however, there are a few specific issues that are limiting to this approach.
1) i'm not sure whether it's true that all human cells have the viral response that is efficient enough for total viral clearance. i'm not all that familiar with reovirus... if it were the case that all normal human cells could completely neutralize and clear reovirus, then reovirus would not be able to continually inhabit the respiratory and bowel systems of human beings, as this company claims (because our cellular responses would have totally cleared it out).
on the other hand, if the reovirus is a natural part of the flora of our respiratory and bowel systems, then profusing patients with this reolysin would in theory cause a crapload of damage to those systems of our body (because then the engineered virus could "naturally" replicate and spread through those areas.
2) also, reolysin targets the ras pathway....while ras is often either constitutively active, or overexpressed in cancer cells, it is unfortunately not the only gene which is upregulated. many other genes are often overexpressed. these genes are called oncogenes (or tumor promoting genes). there are several other genes that are often overepressed, which are separate from the ras pathway. furthermore, there are another class of genes called tumor suppressor genes, which are often inhibited or permanently lost from cancer cells. unfortunately, stopping the ras pathway will not stop cancer cells which are driven by these phenomena.
however, i think that on a case by case basis, this may be a good therapeutic in combination with other therapies. otherwise, i think that using this therapy alone may be a way of selecting for cancers which do not depend completely on the activated ras pathway for propagation.
in any case, if their statistics are true from their clinical trials, it sounds promising, but definitely more basic science and clinical studies need to be done to ensure that this is a safe therapy for general cancer use.
another interesting and developing technology in both britain, and our institute as well as i think two or three other places in the US, is called peptide homing. basically our ex-ceo and another major british bigwig scientist have been mapping out the human body by protein sequence signatures that are specific to every organ, tissue, and even the specific blood vessels that pass through a specific organ. so rather than use viruses (which can often mutate and do things that we don't want), we use these nanoscopic spheres that are coated in antibody that specifically seeks out a certain protein sequence (kind of like a ball covered in velcro). the little spheres can hold payloads of anti-cancer chemicals or protein inhibitors which are then released at the target site. the limiting issue at the moment is how to get specificity of cancer cells. while these little nanospheres can deliver the drugs/inhibitors to a very specific area, it is ideal to have exact cell specificity. so scientists are now working really hard to identify surface molecules displayed on the membranes of cancers cells, but not normal cells.
The fact that you were modded troll for this is just ridiculous.
How in the world can anybody *patent* a naturally-occurring, unmodified organism? What got invented?
The USPTO (or whoever's PTO issued this one) needs a serious enema.
The exact blurb in the article summary was posted on the yahoo finance message board for ONCY, see here. The post asks for people to spread the word. When accused of attempting to pump the stock, he replies Well the last time I got published it added a few million to the market cap. here.
There are also some funny comments asking what kind of editor would post a review like that... well of course slashdot would!
http://www.mypkhome.com/fatcat/cat-fc-3.jpg
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_ page/0,5936,16855046%255E903,00.html
http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/australi an-mystery-cat/
http://www.google.com/search?q=Gippsland+feral+cat +Engel&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a& rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
techies should get to understand financial scams, alas phising and trojans with linux gets people going here, small change in the financial world for pump n dump scams and insider trading
you're saying that the US is just like any other country?
Of course the US tells others what to do and acts offended when told what to do. This is what every other country does as well. Heck, it's what normal people do.
I have an idea. I'll tell you what to do, but you better not tell me what to do. That sounds good to me!
Hmmm. The US is inhabited by humans. Who'd have thought?
Meanwhile, Australia gripes about some Australian crook getting executed in Singapore.
I see business as usual, all around the world.
This safe, naturally occurring, unmodified virus has a remarkable ability to infect and kill cancer cells, without affecting normal, healthy cells. Numerous other third party studies show that the Reovirus should be an important discovery in the treatment of 2/3 of all human cancers. It is patented
Let me get this right, it was discovered not made and some asshat granted a PATENT on this? The USPTO needs to get their heads out of their asses!
more background shamlessly lifted from another site: For newcomers - some background- Our basic understanding about Reolysin therapy is predicated on specific understanding of how Ras activity can drive both the initiation and evolution of a cancer as well as an understanding of how reovirus exploits Ras activation to kill cancer cells.
Reovirus takes advantage of a cell's Ras activity and hi-jacks the cellular machinery for the purpose of completing its life-cycle. The virus life-cycle is only complete when new virus is released into the local environment by the cell exploding (lysis) or a more controlled method of cell death (apoptosis).
The medical application of this process recognizes that the reovirus has successfully evolved this natural life-cycle over billiions of viral generations via non-cancerous Ras+ cells deep in the gut. In separate science, Ras activity has been found to be an important factor identified in many cancers. The critical connection between the reovirus life-cycle and killing cancer cells was established by Patrick Lee's group which included Matt Coffey.
Much of the recent discussion has centered around the association of Ras activity and cancer. The normal purpose of the Ras pathway is to sense the need to promote or slow cell division. A perfect example of the purpose of the Ras pathway occurs after a stomache flu - the flu virus decimates the lining of the bowel and the gut senses that new, healthy cells are needed. The Ras pathway is stimulated by the situation and cellular growth is initiated. When the bowel cells have re-grown to the normal status, cellular signalling calms the Ras pathway down and things are returned to normal. The Ras pathway responds to local tissue concerns. If more cells are needed, it ramps up it's signalling. If there is an over-abundance of cells, it quiets right down until normal amounts of cell death (apoptosis) balances the situation.
Using an electrical analogy, the Ras pathway is one of many circuits that can potentially light up a room. Within the circuit, there are on/off switches (EGFR or Ras) which either completely turn off or turn on the lights. If someone duct-tapes the switch in the"on" position, the lights can't be turned off, even if it is desired. This is analogous to mutation of EGFR or Ras which lock (constitutively activate) the genes into a permanently "on" status. The pathway is permanently turned on and the cells start dividing without proper control - this is a cancer.
Within the Ras circuit are other factors that act as reostats (dimmer switches). Like those little doo-dads on the wall, you can dim or increase the light depending on how much the dimmer switch is turned. As part of a cancer's evolution, a selection process occurs that amplifies signalling through the Ras pathway (gene amplification). Instead of having one dimmer switch, you accumulate many dimmer switches - each with the ability to make the lights brighter and brighter.
Electrical systems have circuit breakers that protect the system from receiving too much electicity and overloading the whole system. If there is too much activity within the circuit, you blow a fuse! There is a control system that governs the Ras pathway also. If the other cellular pathways sense that the Ras pathway is overactive, they ramp up cell-death pathways to accommodate for the greater cell division promoted by Ras+. If cell division equals cell death, equilibrium is reached, cancer is avoided for the time being. The sensors also send back signals to the start of the Ras pathway which inhibit cell growth. Eventually this system can reign in (or adapt to) the Ras over-expression.
The above systems are fragile and are dependent upon fuses and sensors that can tell you about activity. Cancers are evolving "organisms" and eventually, the sensors fail and the fuses don't work - the feedback systems that have been so good at keeping the cancer at bay fail and the whole system collapses. This marks the transition from a local cancer to
This is a problem for people who don't realize they need to register patents in the U.S. of A., Europe, Africa, Asia, etc.
So while yes, they deserve to be rich, they'd better balance greed with "the rest of the world"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Just hunt for prey near a steroid factory. :)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
You can patent atreatment? Like, if you discover that applying orange slices specially cut with a very clever machine in concentric circles around my head cures me of AIDS, while I understand your patenting of this very special device (which is the only device that can produce these very special orange slices), I don't understand your patenting of the CLINICAL USE.
I mean, presumably, once I have one of these devices or I get ahold of some of these orange slices, I ought to be able to use them, right?
-1 Redundant
This coming from someone named "BobTheWonderMonkey".
:P
Yes, serious indeed.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
serious demographic .. slashdotters ?
...
how does it go ? :
you must be new here
Oncolytics has been granted 13 U.S. patents, three Canadian patents and two European patents covering REOLYSIN® technology and modified herpes and adenoviruses. Date of Issue: Oct. 18, 2005 Patent Number: Canadian Patent #2,283,280 Title: Reovirus for the treatment of neoplasia. General Description: Claims describe the use of a reovirus for the manufacture of a medicament to treat Ras-mediated neoplasia as well as methods of treating various cancers by the administration of the reovirus. Date of Issue: Sept. 27, 2005 Patent Number: Canadian Patent #2,428,206 Title: Methods for the treatment of cellular proliferative disorders. General Description: Claims describe methods of treating various types of cellular proliferative disorders including neurofibromatosis and neoplasms (cancers) by the administration of various strains of the reovirus. Date of Issue: Jul.12, 2005 Patent Number: Canadian Patent #2,374,388 Title: The use of ribozymes in the detection of adventitious agents. General Description: Covers a method of validating the purity of microbial preparations during manufacturing by detecting adventitious or contaminating viruses using a ribozyme-based assay specific for the microorganism being manufactured. Date of Issue: Jul.18, 2005 Patent Number: European Patent #1,309,672 Title: Method of Producing Infectious Reovirus. General Description: Covers a method of producing infectious mammalian reovirus which is suitable for clinical administration to mammals including humans. Date of Issue: Nov.2, 2004 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,811,775 Title: Reovirus for the Treatment of Cellular Proliferative Disorders. General Description: Covers using recombinant reovirus for the treatment of neoplasia and non-cancer cellular proliferative diseases such as neurofibromatosis. Date of Issue: Oct.26, 2004 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,808,916 Title: Method of Extracting Virus From Cell Culture. General Description: Covers various methods of production and processing of the reovirus. Date of Issue: Mar.9, 2004 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,703,232 Title: Method of Producing Reovirus. General Description: Covers producing reassorted reoviruses for the treatment of Ras-mediated tumours. Date of Issue: Nov 18, 2003 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,649,157 Title: Viruses for the Treatment of Cellular Proliferative Disorders. General Description: Covers treatment of Ras-mediated tumours using modified herpes viruses. Date of Issue: Jul 22, 2003 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,596,268 Title: Viruses for the Treatment of Cellular Proliferative Disorders. General Description: Covers treatment of Ras-mediated tumours using modified adenoviruses Date of Issue: Jun 10, 2003 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,576,234 Title: Reovirus for the Treatment of Neoplasia. General Description: Covers the use of combinations of reovirus strains for the treatment of Ras-mediated tumours. Date of Issue: May 20, 2003 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,565,831 Title: Method of Preventing Reovirus Recognition for the Treatment of Cellular Proliferative Disorders. General Description: Covers co-administration of the virus with immune-suppressing agents such as Cyclosporin. Date of Issue: Mar 4, 2003 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,528,305 Title: Method of Producing Infectious Reovirus. General Description: Covers a method of producing infectious mammalian reovirus Date of Issue: Sep 24, 2002 Patent Number: U.S. Patent #6,455,038 Title: Reoviruses for the Treatment of Cellular Proliferative Disorders. General Description: Covers use of various strains and combinations of reoviruses, wherein one of more of the reoviruses may be immunoprotected, as a treatment for Ras-mediated proliferative disorders such as neurofibromatosis and cancer in an immunocompetent mammal. Date of Issue: Mar 6, 2002 Patent Number: European Patent #1,003,524 Title: Use of Reovirus as a Treatment for Ras-Mediated Neoplasms (cancers), including the use of different strains of the reovirus, various methods and administration and the treatment of various types of cancer. Date of Issue:
"Why do you assume that it is for the same thing?"
Because these are entry level programmers, in both cases - "new jobs".
If it's not the same thing, then IBM is paying even a higher multiplier than they should: IBM is predominantly a contract services comany (IBM Global Services), which is much less demanding work in user space than hacking the Linux kernel, or doing other work.
Even so, as someone who formerly worked for IBM, I can tell you that the researchers at IRL (IBM's India Resaerch Lab) do *NOT* get a large premium relative to those hired for other work by IBM in India - the multiplier at best is 1.5X. In this case, we are talking 4.5X. A multiplier of 1.5X is roughly comparable to the difference in what IBM would pay me to work at IBM Almaden vs. working in a non-research position at Santa Teresa (both in Silicon Valley).
If the idea of moving work offshore to India is to get cheaper labor (I include knowledge-workers in this), then inflating your costs for no good reason doesn't make a lot of sense.
-- Terry