Thursday, March 28, 2002

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The Washington Post Swiss Firm Plans to Share Rice Genome

"One of the world's largest agricultural companies is putting finishing touches on a plan to make public huge amounts of genetic information about the rice plant, an effort to accelerate research aimed at improving one of mankind's most important crops."

"The plan Syngenta is working on is, in part, an effort to stave off an incipient controversy."

GenomeWeb Science to Print Part of Syngenta’s Rice Genome; Consortium May Get Data-Sharing Deall

"Syngenta's decision to share some data with the International Rice Genome Sequencing Project may help to quiet a growing controversy about public access to data gathered through privately funded sequence projects. But the decision by Science to allow Syngenta to publish without making its data available in Genbank will undoubtedly spur further debate."

redux [03.19.02]
New Scientist Fears over rice genome access

"Prominent gene researchers fear that access to the complete DNA sequence of rice, the world's most important food crop, will be restricted when it is published in a scientific journal."

"Science says the issue is complex. "We have to weigh the benefit of publishing some data so that it is in the public domain or having it all deposited as privately held trade secrets," says Science spokesperson Ginger Pinholster. "In the case of the human genome it was felt that publishing was the best option - for rice, the case is even stronger.""

Independent News Geneticists protest at DNA of rice becoming a trade secret

"Twenty leading geneticists are protesting against a deal that will allow a multinational company to control who has access to the complete DNA sequence of the rice genome – the most important food crop in the developing world.

The scientists, who include British Nobel laureates Sir Paul Nurse and Sir Aaron Klug, are up in arms against a plan to lock away the entire rice sequence on a company database rather than having it published in the open scientific literature."

redux [05.09.01]
IEEE Spectrum Open-Source Biology And Its Impact on Industry

"The toolbox of biochemistry, the parts list--"the kernel," to stretch the software analogy--is shared by all organisms on the planet. In general, organisms differ from one another because of their order of gene expression or because of relatively subtle perturbations to protein structures common to all forms of terrestrial life. That is, innovation in the natural world in some sense has always followed the idea of a service and flow economy. If the environment is static, only when an organism figures out how to use the old toolbox to provide itself, or another organism, with a new service is advantage conferred.

The analogy to future industrial applications of biology is clear: When molecular biologists figure out the kernel of biology, innovation by humans will consist of tweaking the parts to provide new services. Because of the sheer amount of information, it is unlikely that a single corporate entity could maintain a monopoly on the kernel. Eventually, as design tasks increase in number and sophistication, corporations will have to share techniques and this information will inevitably spread widely, reaching all levels of technical ability--the currency of the day will be innovation and design. As with every other technology developed by humans, biological technology will be broadly disseminated."

Technology based on intentional, open-source biology is on its way, whether we like it or not, and the opportunity it represents will just begin to emerge in the next 50 years."