Welcome to Open Source Malaria
The Open Source Malaria project is trying a different approach to curing malaria. Guided by open source principles, everything is open and anyone can contribute. This Landing Page aggregates the most recent activity in Open Source Malaria. Action items are on the To Do List and experiments from all contributors are recorded in the Lab Notebooks. Most current research is on a very promising set of molecules known as Series 4. If you’d like to get involved, go right ahead, or get in touch with a member of the consortium (click on “Join the Team” below). In open source research all data and ideas are freely shared, anyone may participate as an equal partner and there will be no patents - think “Linux for Malaria Research” (FAQ).
Resources
Open source Antibiotics molecules Google Sheet
Activity
Github activity here.
Join the team
How to get involved:
If you like the sound of open research and curing malaria, then join in! Here’s how:
- Check out the current To Do List for details of what’s needed right now - help resolve an issue, comment on things that you think need to be done, or post any of your suggestions/ideas.
- Follow the G+, Twitter and Facebook pages.
- Read up on where we are and what we’ve published on the Wiki and sign up if you want to make changes.
- Check out the fresh chemical and biological data in the Lab Notebooks.
- Watch the regular Online Meetings and maybe come along to the next one.
- If you’re a chemist, make a molecule that the project needs so that it can be screened for activity. Graduate and undergraduate students have contributed molecules from their own labs.
- If you’re a biologist, see if any of the compounds made by the project might be of interest to you for malaria or some other disease.
- Buy a project T-shirt - money goes to supporting the science - to help spread the word.
- Open source projects discourage email (because email is a closed form of communication), but the consortium can be reached at opensourcemalaria@gmail.com
- Anyone can run their own project under the umbrella of Open Source Malaria - anyone can add to the wiki, or add items to the Github To Do list or post raw data to the open lab notebooks. If you want to start your own open science project, you could launch it on the first site that was devoted to open source biomedical research: The Synaptic Leap
Open research is where anyone can take part at any level of the project, that all data and ideas are shared and there are no patents. You are welcome, whatever your expertise.
At the moment the main focus is on finding a new medicine by improving some molecules originally discovered by Big Pharma and put into the public domain, something called open source drug discovery. Much of what we need is based in science (chemistry and biology), but there are important things you can do if you’re outside those fields.
You just have to adhere to the Six Laws:
First Law: All data are open and all ideas are shared. Second Law: Anyone can take part at any level of the project. Third Law: There will be no patents. Fourth Law: Suggestions are the best form of criticism. Fifth Law: Public discussion is much more valuable than private email. Sixth Law: The project is bigger than, and is not owned by, any given lab.
The default licence for everything in the OSM project is CC-BY, meaning you can use whatever you want for any reason (including to make money) provided you cite the project.