FYI, got this through a French mailing list on open source but, ironically, the message is in English ;)
Catherine
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> 'Open source' urged for TB drug design effort
> http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=printarticle&itemid=4082&language=1
>
>
> *An open source project could lead to more affordable drugs for the
> world's poor T. V. Padma
> 23 November 2007
> Source: SciDev.Net
>
> [NEW DELHI] One of India's top genetics researchers has called for a
> global, collaborative effort to design a new tuberculosis (TB) drug
> using an 'open source' approach.
>
> Samir Brahmachari — recently appointed director general of the Council
> of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a chain of 38 government
> laboratories engaged in industry-oriented research — made the proposal
> at a meeting on science and innovation in Delhi last week (22 November).
>
> He said that conducting such a project openly could lead to drugs that
> were more affordable to the world's poor.
>
> Brahmachari, who was previously director of the Institute of Genomics
> and Integrative Biology, suggested an openly accessible website
> through which researchers could explore how information about the
> Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome and other scientific data could be
> used to design new TB drugs.
>
> According to his proposal, the problems of drug design could be
> divided into a number of work packages, each tackled by different
> teams of researchers, who would then make their proposed solutions
> freely available to others for comment.
>
> Once potential solutions have been identified, the pharmaceutical
> industry would be able to incorporate these into the development of
> new candidate drugs and take them through clinical testing, just as
> the computer industry makes use of open source software (such as
> Linux) in the design of new computer programmes.
>
> Brahmachari highlighted how TB continues to claim over 7,000 lives
> daily across the world, mostly affecting the poor.
>
> "The right to good health is a right for all," he said. "How much [of
> new medical research findings] should be protected and how much should
> be made open access is a matter that should be debated."
>
> Brahmachari said that his proposals for an 'open source' approach were
> in the spirit of the original human genome project, where information
> was placed on an open database freely accessible to scientists across
> the world.
>
> "Can we create for infectious diseases an 'open source' mobilisation
> that will allow us to use the brainpower of the whole world, including
> both experienced and young researchers, to advance the process of drug
> discovery?" he asked.
>
> "Once we do this, we can start conquering other diseases using the
> same 'open source' model," he added.
>
> Dinesh Abrol, a scientist with the National Institute for Science,
> Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS) in New Delhi, cautioned
> that an open source approach to designing new drugs for infectious
> diseases should not be misused by large pharmaceutical corporations to
> later patent products developed with help from the open source databases.
> The meeting at which Brahmachari spoke was organised by NISTADS to
> present to Indian science policymakers the outcome of a research
> project into current trends in science and innovation in China, India
> and South Korea, compiled by the London-based think-tank Demos.
>
>
>
--
Catherine Roy
www.catherine-roy.net
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