Scientists tout ‘open source’ drug discovery

Applying open source methodology to disease research could speed up the process of drug discovery, according to researchers at the University of Sydney.

Senior lecturer at the university’s School of Chemistry, Dr Matthew Todd, told Computerworld Australia that the current method of drug discovery is extremely competitive and mostly carried out behind closed doors to protect certain ideas and any commercial benefits down the track.

University of Sydney researchers are openly sharing their lab notes, primarily through a blog — The Synaptic Leap — as well as Twitter and Google+ and currently have around 15 contributors to a malaria project that is in pilot stages — via redwolf.newsvine.com