Open Source Biology Deserves a Shot
Gene sequencing has gotten incredibly fast and cheap, and researchers around the world are pouring huge volumes of genomic data onto their private servers, in the hope they will sift through it all to make groundbreaking discoveries. Should so much genomic data be so closely guarded, or should it be poured into a free and open database that all scientists share?
The idea sounds utopian in a high-risk, high-reward industry that protects intellectual property like Fort Knox. But no one disagrees that today’s approach to drug development takes too long, costs too much, and is too unpredictable.
Stephen Friend thinks shared data would change all of that—and allow researchers to see patterns they wouldn’t otherwise see, and make insights that would never emerge any other way. So he did something two years ago that most people would consider quixotic: He quit his high-powered job as a senior vice president of cancer research at Merck to go on a mission to disrupt biology.
The founding idea, at a nonprofit called Sage Bionetworks, was to spark an online movement like the one we’ve seen with open-source software or Wikipedia, in which thousands of loosely affiliated people around the world pool their brainpower to do something great. In this case, the wisdom of the crowd could improve drug development and personalize medicine.
The Sage Commons is built on the notion that the genomic symphony is too bewildering for any individual or team—even at a place with as many dollars and brainiacs as Merck—to figure out. That seems pretty obvious.
- Login to post comments