The Synaptic Leap has launched an open-source research project to cure or alleviate two tropical diseases. (Thanks to Glyn Moody.) Excerpt:
Biomedical science is indivisible. The physical and psychological barriers that divide scientific communities are ultimately artificial and counterproductive. We see online collaboration as a natural way to bridge these gaps and pool information that is currently too fragmented for anyone to use. An open, collaborative research community will find new ways to do science, answering questions that current institutions find difficult or impossible....
We are beginning our journey focused on the two tropical diseases malaria and schistosomiasis. Diseases found exclusively in tropical regions predominantly afflict poor people in developing countries. The typical profit-driven pharmaceutical economic model fails with these diseases because there is simply no money to be made. However, the very fact that there’s no profit incentive to research these diseases makes them perfect candidates for open source style research; there’s no profit incentive to keep secrets either. Our pilot research communities are: [1] Malaria and [2] Schistosomiasis....
Open source communities are only as strong as the volunteers who support them. To begin participating you need to create a username for yourself and login. Get off the sidelines and become a part of this revolutionary new experiment!
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/03/2006 11:00:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
