Subject: CCL:open-pharma?

From: Glenn Butterfoss <glenn_butterfoss(at)med.unc.edu>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 17:06:27 -0400

Hi all,

     The growth of the open-source model of software development has
been (to me) quite astonishing.  Recently, it seems the open source
model has evolved to live in new habitats, such as  the efforts of
groklaw.net to evaluate intellectual property claims in the Linux
software and wikipedia.com as a  general  human knowledge base.  I am
wondering if (any) CCLers' would consider the idea of  open-source
pharmaceutical development , for the computer-based identification of
lead compounds, to be appropriate and/or feasible with current
technology. Drugdesign.org has been mentioned on CCL, but this is more
of a listing of available software ... I have in mind community based
project integrating software development, database construction and
error checking, target identification and therapeutic refinement.  This
would, in a sense, be  meta -open-source software development ...an
effort to optimize both the programs themselves, methods for using and
combining them, and organization of results. (As far as I know, this has
yet to be tried.) 
      Open-pharma  would likely entail an attempt to merge efforts
diverse as, systems biology, tabulation of experimental kinetic and
binding constants, docking, and molecular design.  I do not have a very
clear model of an optimal implementation for this sort of thing but I
think that it could be quite productive because: 1) the general
population could more easily see the  big picture  and the talents and
insights of a broader set of people could be  crossed  with a broader
set of problems, 2) databases which are central to many programs and
projects will be more carefully vetted, and 3) potential treatments for
rare and  less-profitable  indications may be identified more quickly.
     Of coarse, even if this system proved somewhat efficient, it would
only get leads up to the wet lab stage but I hope a computationally
promising compound could be effectively and fairly licensed to
interested groups for experimental testing ... OneWorld  (
oneworldhealth .org ) has already established itself as a nonprofit
pharma company, primarily focused on conducting clinical trials (I think).

I would be grateful for any comments.
Thank you,

Glenn Butterfoss