An Example Of Open Source Drug Discovery

“Open Source Drug Discovery? How does that work?” I am asked this quite a lot. There are some principles and core practices that are involved, embodied in the Six Laws, but those are quite hifalutin. Let me give a practical example.

The main point is that everything is open, so anyone can come along, make molecules, do biology, do informatics, contribute data to the lab notebooks, coordinate the research and generally contribute in any number of ways for which there are simple technological solutions. All sorts of inputs are possible, including experimental ones.

Earlier this year there was a need to make a bunch of molecules as part of the first medicinal chemistry campaign in the open source malaria project. The hit molecule that was the starting point had an ester in it, and initial results had shown that the ester was a problem. [...]