The Synaptic Leap

Glaxo allows access to 1000s of in house chemical to the public domain
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jan/20/glaxo-malaria-drugs-public...

I am Luogbou-nzu, PhD student at the university of Yaoundé I camerron. I am working on genetic diversity of Schistosoma haematobium from Cameroon.  At this level I have already collected samples from 10 villages in Cameroon. In total, 44 isolates of adults worms (1273 males and 979 females), 99 samples for miracidia and 37 samples for cercariae are available for molecular analysis.It is very important to gain better insight into the biological haracteristics of the human schistosomes species, including their transmission and epidemiological patterns, that is why a detailed understanding of their genetic structure and heterogeneity is vital.

There is often talk of whether (or when) resistance to praziquantel will develop, and how catastrophic this would be for the treatment of schisto. There have been some important studies on this over the years, but a recent paper in PLoS NTD provides some new evidence for the development of resistance in Kenya. Thanks to Marc for the heads up.

New Approach to Open Contributions Experiment at Google

Check out Google's Highly Open Participation Contest. They are trying to create an open task list approach to getting help from people who want to help but don't know quite how to get started. Drupal, the open source content management application we use here at TSL is one of the projects involved. Here's the Drupal project page for GHOP. And here's a list of open tasks for Drupal.

A couple of weeks ago, Dr Mat Todd appeared on Open Source internet radio station KFUU.fm.

The interview (MP3) has yet to be uploaded but should be in the coming weeks.

Source:-

http://www.kruufm.com/open-views-matthew-todd-synaptic-leap-7pm-tu-7am-th

Barry Bunin, a registered user here at TSL and CEO of CDD, is presenting at the upcoming BioScience Forum on April 18. If you're in the SF Bay area, it looks like an interesting meeting to attend.

The material below is from a press release issued in July 2004 by the American Chemical Society.

And as a side note -- cinnamon oil contains 2-phenylacetaldehyde. 

Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) contains acetaldehyde.  Therefore one wonders if witch hazel poured onto watery places where mosquitoes might breed, whether it would act as a larvicide too.

[ En francais -- Le matériel ci-dessous, c'est un communiqué de presse publié juillet 2004 par la société chimique américaine.

Et penser également, peut-être -- l'essence de cannelle contient "2-phenylacetaldehyde."

TDR has just produced the following new publication:

Lessons learned in Home Management of Malaria -
Implementation research in four African countries
http://www.who.int/tdr/publications/publications/lessons_hmm.htm

If you wish to receive a printed copy of it, please send an email to:
mailto:tdr@who.int or to mailto:bruyerejm@who.int

Dear TSL Members,

You are invited to the first annual QB3-UCSF-CDD developing world disease research community meeting scheduled for March 5^th 2007 at the UCSF Mission Bay Campus (details below and attached).  The collaborative community includes leading experts on developing world infectious disease research from Stanford, UCSF, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UW, SBRI, St. Jude CRH, U. Penn, Univ. of Sydney, and industry too.  

Collaborative Drug Discovery
First Annual Community Meeting

Monday, March 5^th 2007 1:00-6:00 pm; Auditorium: J. David Gladstone Institute (1^st Floor)

Hosted by Gladstone Institute and QB3 at the UCSF, Mission Bay Campus

Two major themes of this event are:

1)      Public-Private-Partnerships for Global Health Issues
2)      “Open” concepts for Collaborative Drug Discovery

Confirmed Speakers:
 

• Dr. Christopher Lipinski, Pfizer, retired. (Keynote presentation)
  
• Jim McKerrow, Professor, Dept. of Pathology, QB3 - UCSF
  
• Matt Bogyo, Professor, Dept. of Pathology, Stanford Medical School
  
• Andrej Sali, Professor, Dept of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, QB3 - UCSF
  
• Dr. Anang Shelat, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
  
• David Roos, Biology Professor, Univ. of Penn tentatively confirmed (Director, Penn Genomics Institute).

Symposium – Coffee/Snacks – Demos – Posters – Networking – Wine Reception

Registration is free. To register contact/RSVP to: kgregory@collaborativedrug.com.

Bernard Munos, from Eli Lilly, wrote a very thorough article on open and collaborative research for neglected diseases and it was just published at Nature: Can open-source R&D reinvigorate drug research. What I particularly like about the article are the details he provides in describing how he thinks pharmaceutical companies can and should participate in the process.

Let's face it; we're in uncharted territory. We don't really KNOW how it's going to work. We're in the midst of a big evolving experimental process.

My vision for how it will work tends to be a bit more grass roots, less centralized group driving the process. Collaborative process tools like a Gene Wiki will enable dedicated experts to suggest work for less involved volunteers to contribute. People will collaborate with the people they trust and trust must be earned.