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> Biopharma is not IT where a smart kid can compete from his garage. It just isn't. It isn't today, but it may be at some point. We tend to underestimate the e

by snewk 11y ago

> Biopharma is not IT where a smart kid can compete from his garage. It just isn't. It isn't today, but it may be at some point. We tend to underestimate the effects of monumental shifts like we've had in IT. This project represents the first steps in that direction. > The sort of thing that a single undergrad could do in a few days. Even if this were true, the OpenInsulin project doesn't have a large institution's lab facility. Nor does the project have a government grant as benefactor. They are operating only off crowdfunding. It's obviously not enough to get through the FDA approval process, but IS enough to construct a roadmap to that end and make headway on a functional insulin producing organism. The project already has E. coli making proinsulin. The experimental focus has now moved to methods of purification. They are also investigating the feasibility/cost of getting this through the FDA approval process for biosimilar molecules. I think the real magic of this project is its open nature, which I find to be lacking in the scientific community. This is research that anyone can make meaningful contributions to. Science (specifically biology) can learn a lot from open source software.

gozur88 11y ago
>It isn't today, but it may be at some point. We tend to underestimate the effects of monumental shifts like we've had in IT. This project represents the first steps in that direction. But what makes pharma expensive and time-consuming is the regulatory process. Producing drugs is easy - meth dealers do it all the time. But spending a decade getting your drug through the federal system is expensive, and there's no technological shortcut. I'll take more interest when they stop "investigating the feasibility/cost of getting this through the FDA" and publish a plan to actually do it.
roadnottaken 11y ago
> construct a roadmap I just don't understand what this means here. Cloning a gene and expressing it in e.coli is something that has been routine for decades. Literally. These simple experiments won't provide a roadmap to do anything that we haven't known how to do for a long time. It's like a crowdsourcing project to raise money to write a "hello world" program. Seriously. Open-ness is great. But "meaningful contributions" are generally made at the cutting edge of scientific research. The experiments described are nipping at the heels of science that was worked-out in the early 80s, so I fail to see how a meaningful contribution will be made here. Open source is great, but making headway in drug discovery or development is a Hard Problem and this doesn't strike me as a serious effort. Just my two cents.
- dluan 11y ago
  I think you're being disingenuous for the sake of argument. There is a non-trivial scientific challenge of characterizing both proinsulin subunits and developing a protocol that works for public domain without adverse effects. Specifically, getting the sequence right to get the folding right. Yeah, it's been done before but with different variations. To do so in a way that isn't locked up in IP is worthwhile. And it's a challenge that faces an uphill battle in terms of incentive and payoff. The crowdfunding covers that risk capital gap that would otherwise make this impossible. You could say their approach is a road not taken.
  - roadnottaken 11y ago
    Fair-enough. I'm not an insulin expert so perhaps I don't appreciate the particular challenges here. But the way it was described on the website didn't make the task sound too impressive. I was also struck by the money involved. ~$15k will pay for an experiment or two, as they indicate on the website. It takes many thousands of experiments to get anywhere in Biopharma. So... it's a nice start, and maybe a worthwhile challenge, but it hardly seems like a serious effort. And not everyone realizes that, so I thought it was worth pointing out.
    - dluan 11y ago
      Yes, $15k would not be the same for a biopharma company, but they explicitly do not have the same goals of a biopharma company, nor are they a biopharma company, nor do their people come biopharma, nor are their users biopharma companies. Biopharma companies do not benefit from this, so why does it even matter what the status quo or state of the art of "doing science" is? It's easy to be a cynic on HN, it's harder to think critically about why someone else would believe that it could work. You don't really get rewarded for empathy on here.

by snewk 11y ago

gozur88 11y ago

>It isn't today, but it may be at some point. We tend to underestimate the effects of monumental shifts like we've had in IT. This project represents the first steps in that direction. But what makes pharma expensive and time-consuming is the regulatory process. Producing drugs is easy - meth dealers do it all the time. But spending a decade getting your drug through the federal system is expensive, and there's no technological shortcut. I'll take more interest when they stop "investigating the feasibility/cost of getting this through the FDA" and publish a plan to actually do it.

roadnottaken 11y ago

> construct a roadmap I just don't understand what this means here. Cloning a gene and expressing it in e.coli is something that has been routine for decades. Literally. These simple experiments won't provide a roadmap to do anything that we haven't known how to do for a long time. It's like a crowdsourcing project to raise money to write a "hello world" program. Seriously. Open-ness is great. But "meaningful contributions" are generally made at the cutting edge of scientific research. The experiments described are nipping at the heels of science that was worked-out in the early 80s, so I fail to see how a meaningful contribution will be made here. Open source is great, but making headway in drug discovery or development is a Hard Problem and this doesn't strike me as a serious effort. Just my two cents.

dluan 11y ago
I think you're being disingenuous for the sake of argument. There is a non-trivial scientific challenge of characterizing both proinsulin subunits and developing a protocol that works for public domain without adverse effects. Specifically, getting the sequence right to get the folding right. Yeah, it's been done before but with different variations. To do so in a way that isn't locked up in IP is worthwhile. And it's a challenge that faces an uphill battle in terms of incentive and payoff. The crowdfunding covers that risk capital gap that would otherwise make this impossible. You could say their approach is a road not taken.
- roadnottaken 11y ago
  Fair-enough. I'm not an insulin expert so perhaps I don't appreciate the particular challenges here. But the way it was described on the website didn't make the task sound too impressive. I was also struck by the money involved. ~$15k will pay for an experiment or two, as they indicate on the website. It takes many thousands of experiments to get anywhere in Biopharma. So... it's a nice start, and maybe a worthwhile challenge, but it hardly seems like a serious effort. And not everyone realizes that, so I thought it was worth pointing out.
  - dluan 11y ago
    Yes, $15k would not be the same for a biopharma company, but they explicitly do not have the same goals of a biopharma company, nor are they a biopharma company, nor do their people come biopharma, nor are their users biopharma companies. Biopharma companies do not benefit from this, so why does it even matter what the status quo or state of the art of "doing science" is? It's easy to be a cynic on HN, it's harder to think critically about why someone else would believe that it could work. You don't really get rewarded for empathy on here.