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Foldit Player May Have Created a Useful Protein
An anonymous reader writes "The organizers of the game Foldit, where you fold proteins for scientific research, announced that a user has found a protein that may be able to bind influenza viruses. Researchers plan to test the protein in a lab over the next few weeks to see if it might be medically useful."
And who gets the patent(s), money etc. for this particular protein?
Just wondering. Is there a "prize?" Like getting the first dose of whatever-it-turns-into?
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Isn't this how the premise for I am legend came about?
Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a d
If it is a useful protein, the patent will go to whoever owns the lab. The player and discoverer will be quietly shooed away. You'll see a slashdot article titled "foldit player sues lab" in 8 months. Then you'll never hear about it again.
I heard about this when it was first announced and cannot believe it still exists/people are still playing this "game"
Anyway this is probably more of a PR smoke then an actual discovery. Drug companies burn through lots of computer time to find potential drug targets most of which do not work. I would expect that a protein (much larger and more complicated then developed drugs) would make the likelihood of its synthesis and folding into the desired structure even less likely to work.
Influenza is a fickle virus, able to alter its hemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins very quickly. Although the link is very light on details, it sounds like they're hoping for a hemagglutinin-binding protein. While this would be a "proof of concept" for the usefulness of Foldit, don't hold your breath on this being any sort of flu cure.
You need an infinite number of monkeys typing to ensure that one of them produces the complete works of Shakespeare.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
FoldIT is not only closed source software, but also closed as an application. It's the best application to remodel and fix up protein structures out there; yet it is not available to use it on your own protein structures.
The groups behind it are research groups and of course with it being their own 'product' they are not forced to sell it or give it away, but they are still sitting on it, although many molecular biologists could benefit from its availability as a professional remodeling tool. When emailing the developing group about possibilites to use it for redesigning parts of my own protein structure and paying for the program, I was only told that there are no plans to allow that. In my opinion this is bad science, because there is no way to duplicate any of it, without a massive development effort.
I played fold.it for a few months a year and half ago. I was better than most at it, but there was one guy who almost always got the best score on every protein he worked on. He was a mutant at it; the Michael Jordan of protein folding. I joked that it was like The Last Starfighter , he was being selected for being taken off planet by the aliens who developed the game. He had a way of identifying parts of a protein that could be modified to improve it. By studying people like him...on what they see that nobody else does, can lead to improved automated algorithms, which can lead to significant improvements in medicines.
Finding optimal folds of proteins is an NP-Hard problem, so having any heuristic algorithm improvements can vastly increase the chance of having automated tools find useful folds in reasonable amounts of time.
Otherwise you might just end up with a King... A Stephen King... The Tommyknockers... In Dutch.
You need an infinite number of monkeys typing to ensure that one of them produces the complete works of Shakespeare.
If you have an infinite number of monkeys typing, then you'll get an infinite number of monkeys producing the complete works of Shakespear, not just one. If you make the effort, you can actually calculate the number of monkeys required to have a certain probability of getting at least one monkey to produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Each additional monkey will add to the probability of success.
so it's a completely different pool of money[,] asstard.
You're confused about that making any difference at all in a cost-benefit to society way.
To paraphrase you: "You're so stupid. The money doesn't get wasted in this place but in the other one. This is totally ok, you know, because this is a symptom of the way the system is set up, so it must be ok. That said, I'm now going to drag something completely unrelated into the discussion because I'm less interested in finding out what's right than in attacking people who don't share my unquestionable presuppositions."
The difference here probably is that your parent implied it's bad to spend money, i.e. human time and labor investment, on something that doesn't create added value, while you think it's just "frictional" costs in a system that can't be any other way.
... and their username isn't sexkitten69.
Be seeing you...
Steve is that you?
The research was probably touched by his noodly appendage.
The funniest part is people assuming this will end up being a cure. Big Pharma has no interest in cures, just mildly effective maintenance drugs one has to keep purchasing in perpetuity.
There is enough deseases in the world to stay in business once you eradicate one or two diseases. In the meanwhile - finding a full cure for anything gives you an exclusive access to a metaphorical gold mine.
I hear this all the time, and it doesn't make sense.
If I'm Pfizer, sure, I have no interest in curing erectile dysfunction - I make a killing on Viagra.
If I'm GlaxoSmithKlein, I'm doing everything I can to cure it, because that would take away a profit center for my competitor.
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Infinite * infinitesimal does not necessarily equal infinite.
You could get an infinite number of copies of Shakespeare, a finite number of copies, or zero copies.
Go look at the literature. Pauling showed that the mechanism virii use to transport glucose also transport C and that very high doses of C (100G/d IV) kill virii and do not harm the patient.
This represented a significant threat to big pharma who then spent the rest of his life "discrediting" him by doing stupid shit like giving *oral* doses of C, finding it didn't work they calling him a quack.
You'll notice, if you look hard enough they were able to reverse polio in the 50s with this technique that supposedly works on *any* virus.
Don't even mention quackwatch.com - it's funded by big pharma.
Pauling is the only guy that ever got two nobel prizes in two different areas unshared.
Don't believe me, go look at what he did and the troubles he had and follow the money.
Need Mercedes parts ?
The funniest part is people assuming this will end up being a cure. Big Pharma has no interest in cures, just mildly effective maintenance drugs one has to keep purchasing in perpetuity.
Put down the bong and learn a little about how the real world works. Big Pharma only has a very limited monopoly on selling drugs. If and when the FDA finally approves it, they've only got maybe a decade and a bit left on the patent to make as much money as possible before dozens of generics in Third World countries start churning out copies at a fraction of the cost. (Heck, many of them don't even wait until the patent has expired.) How much more do you think a cure for influenza is worth than a "mildly effective maintenance drug"? It's certainly worth a lot more to me. Every government in the world that can afford it will be scrambling to buy it, which is probably several billion dollars in sales alone. If it's really the first and only cure on the market, they barely need to advertise, because every news outlet in the country will be screaming "FLU CURED". They will spend a decade basking in public appreciation and be remembered as "the company that cured the flu". I think this is probably worth many billions more than the potential of 50 years competing with cheap generics.
There is a more practical consideration, which is that patents have to be published, so if they really went out of their way to fuck up the cure to make it less effective for no other reason than long-term profit (which, again, does not exist), not only will someone else figure out the real cure eventually, the company looks like a bunch of assholes, more so than normal.
That said, I also doubt this is going to end up being a cure, simply because I have very limited faith in computational drug design, just like everyone else who's spent any time at all doing experimental biochemistry.
With the number of people contributing to Folding@Home etc I would have thought that something like this would have happened long ago.
Folding@Home is simulating the process of protein folding, not trying to guess the final structure. In fact, the F@H researchers already know the final structure - that's why they chose those proteins, because they're well-studied and experimentally tractable. FoldIt, on the other hand, isn't trying to present a physically accurate depiction of the process, it's just a way to guess what the folded protein will look like using as little CPU time as possible.
True competitors are in a zero sum situation.
When you're running a company you're trying to maximise your profits. You're not going to go out of your way to damage a competitor's profits. if you can damage your competitor's revenue to the point that you force them out of business then their patents would go to auction and you'd have to bid against others for them. Really it would be much more sensible to just merge with your competitor, or make a deal to buy or license the patents you need.
Spending a lot of money to damage your competitor is just cutting into your own profits, which is stupid, and goes against the whole idea of the free market system.
This isn't really a case of big pharma not behaving as good capitalists. This is a case of market failure. The market provides more incentives to produce treatments while not providing incentives for producing cures. Capitalism just doesn't do R&D in the best interests of humanity.
no a treatment is more profitable because when the patent runs out you can make a small variation on it and get a new patent. Bribe doctors to prescribe the "new and improved" version and you can keep making profit of the same disease for many decades.
If they come out with a cure, well sure they make a profit that one time off of it, but once they wipe out the disease they can no longer make profit off of it. Yeah they get good PR, but what the hell good is that going to do when there isn't any need for their product anymore?
See each disease is has its own market of people that have that disease. You cure the disease then that market is gone forever. If you only treat that disease you can continue developing new products for that market forever.
If you don't want to play the game but do want to help protein research then there are a couple of ways you can donate some of your unused computer time to researchers in this field. The newest way about to come on-line is a project by Dr. Charlie Strauss at Los Alamos National Lab. He is in the process of setting up a distributed grid of volunteer computers from folks who want to donate cycles on their (intel) mac computers to protein design. It's not online yet but you already have the software installed on your mac. it's part of the mac-OS and it's called xgrid and it's in your sharing preferences. If you have a mac, with a multi-core intel CPU and want to donate some of your underutilized computing power then write to him at cems (at) lanl.gov with the subject line "Joining the Xgrid" for details. He's working on replacements for antibodies and enzymes that can digest wood waste into bio-fuels.
If you have never heard of Xgrid, it's a descendant of the ZILLA project that ran on NeXT computers. One of the earliest volunteer grids. Zilla is credited with pivotal exploration of the 4 color map theorem proof and foundational work in big-computing CGI.
Nope - the chance of one monkey writing the complete works of Shakespeare is very very small (no. of different characters used in Shakespeare to the power of actual no. of characters used), but it is a chance, and a real number, and therefore it is not truly infinitesimal. If something can be measured, it is not infinitesimal. Infinity * Something very very small = Infinity.
Virii: A word used to indicate ignorance about viruses.
Ok it's not, but that should be the definition.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This old tripe, again?
Look:
There is no Big Pharma payola.
Also, for your stupid conspiracy to be true, it would mean the people running Big Pharma are very kind people.
Here is why:
If you are a CEO and you find a cure. You're stocl goes up and yopu make a huge money. You also prevent other companies from making money from a treatment. So there stock goes down.
Again, you win.
To suppress a cure, that mean you are putting it aside for the next CEO in exchange for a marginal bonus and a nominal, if any, stock change. Again, lower bonus.
IT would also mean every scientist they employee never leave, patents it themselves, or talks to the press.
It also means you suppress every bit of university medical research, and suppress medical research in other companies and suppress medical research in every country.
You have falling prey to the 'global conspiracy' mental condition.
Stop it and think.
I am not saying they are all nice guy and do no wrong. I am just pointing out the fallacy upon fallacy that has to be built for your conspiracy to even be possible.
Also, you fall into the anti-corporate fallacy. You assume everyone the works as a board and executive position is evil simply for having the position.
Look at the most manipulative and bastard companies ever: tobacco
If they could keep the science quite about tobacco, then I't a pretty lion stretch to think a company could suppress this. Especially when other companies would destroy them if they tried.
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As narrated by William Shatner?
how is babby formed?
... they've only got maybe a decade and a bit left on the patent to make as much money as possible ... How much more do you think a cure for influenza is worth than a "mildly effective maintenance drug"
Additionally: Curing a diseased person means there's a disease-prone person able to earn money and buy their other products for decades to come - and a doctor who knows they sell stuff that works well.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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Stop that, you're making sense!
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