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Biology Goes Open Source

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the models-that-work-from-time-to-time dept.

cford writes "According to Forbes some of the drug company giants are finally realizing that their genetic research is worth more if they give it away. 'Novartis, the Basel, Switzerland, drug giant, has helped uncover which of the 20,000 genes identified by the Human Genome Project are likely to be associated with diabetes. But rather than hoard this information, as drug firms have traditionally done, it is making it available for free on the World Wide Web. "It will take the entire world to interpret these data," says Novartis research head Mark Fishman. "We figure we will benefit more by having a lot of companies look at these data than by holding it secret."'"

3 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. What do you know by Jack+Malmostoso · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe evil corporations are not that evil after all. Nah, can't be.

  2. I call BS by cinnamon+colbert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What this means is they can't figure out how to use the info before the patents expire. The idea that novartis or any other drug company would let loose proprietary info on a gene they thought would lead them to a drug for diabetes is ludicrous.

  3. Why this hype? by aschoff_nodule · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is not the first time this has happened.

    A lot of private firms have identified disease susceptibility genes. There is a company in Iceland called 'deCode' - http://www.decode.com/ which has been doing this stuff for many years now, exploiting the fact the iceland has a relatively stable and homogenous genetic population. They have genetic data available for more than 25% of the population of Iceland and they have innumerable papers and free online resources.

    Not to mention the federal govt. has been doing this forever now and 'Human Genome Project' and 'Hapmap project' are well known.