Open-Source Science Makes Headway

Abstract

Open-source science is gaining ground as scientists explore the benefits of working together without copyright and patent constraints in virtual forums. Like Wikipedia, these “wiki-style” forums enable them to reuse, build on, and extend the work and resources of fellow researchers. In the past 5–10 years, more than a dozen websites have emerged that are dedicated to creating open access to many of the necessary ingredients for drug discovery, including data, information technology and analytic tools, biospecimens, and disease models (see sidebar). Many advocates for open-source science claim that it can counter investigative redundancy and the squandering of biomedical research resources. They also say it will create a productive synergy that will speed up our understanding and treatment of complex diseases such as cancer. But both advocates and critics point out challenges to this approach, such as countering the cultural and economic norms that limit sharing, creating compatible datasets, ensuring high-quality data, and finding sustained financial backing. Despite those challenges, open-source science is making substantial headway in the biomedical arena. The amount and quality of information available in the public domain has grown dramatically, according to Thinh Nguyen, counsel for Science Commons, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to make sharing scientific data and materials among scientists easier. “These changes mean that what is available in the commons is starting to be almost as good as what companies can develop themselves internally—it's starting to get a place at the table when you are doing serious drug development research,” Nguyen said at a presentation at an Institute of Medicine (IOM) conference on precompetitive collaboration last February. The participation of big-name players—such as the National Cancer Institute, Merck, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, several universities and foundations, and patient advocacy groups—is boosting the reputation of open-source science. So are some websites’ impressive gains. The Open-Source Drug Discovery (OSDD), which is dedicated to discovering treatments for diseases that plague the developing world, surprised many when more than 400 of its volunteer researchers reannotated the tuberculosis bacterium genome, wiki style, in just 4 months—record time for such an endeavor, according to Eli Lilly's Bernard Munos.