Making drug development less secretive could l... - CLL Support

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Making drug development less secretive could lead to quicker, cheaper therapies

AussieNeil profile image
AussieNeilAdministrator
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'Our new research, published today in the journal ACS Central Science, shows that with the right investment, an open source drug discovery system – based on sharing all information in the public domain in real time – might compete with the traditional pharmaceutical industry to deliver the drugs we need.

Secrecy vs openness

Secrecy ruins the efficiency of the research process. Competing groups operate in ignorance of each others' results, experts fail to talk to each other and there’s unnecessary duplication.

There are groups pursuing projects known to others to be dead-ends.

In contrast, open source projects are developed by communities where everything is shared. Mutual learning is fast.

The ability to “look over the shoulder” of people working on the same problem can lead to extraordinary leaps of productivity. Contributors can rapidly identify problems and can join and leave a nimble team as required.

Examples of open source products are the Android operating system on our phones, the Firefox and Chrome web browsers on our computers and much of the infrastructure of the internet. Such things are often market-leading.'

From the University of Sydney, Matthew Todd, Associate Professor, School of Chemistry and Alice Williamson, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Teaching Fellow in Chemistry, University of Sydney explain how they’ve used open source principles in the discovery of new medicines for malaria: theconversation.com/making-...

Neil

Photo: Donkey Orchids being guarded by a very large insect

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AussieNeil
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Is that not what DNA profiling is all about ... the is big waves being made to fight diseases and illnesses a cost affective way BUT till people do math it will be statistically impossible to archive.

DNA profiling = DNA vaccines

AussieNeil profile image
AussieNeilAdministrator in reply to

DNA profiling enables us to identify how our cells make proteins and where that process breaks down from errors in the coding (by comparing known good DNA with faulty DNA from someone with the genetic based illness being researched).

To change the DNA requires more than a vaccine, which is a just a way of teaching our immune system what should be recognised as a pathogen and destroyed. To overcome genetic diseases, we need some way to edit the faulty DNA, which requires painstakingly accurate identification of the section of faulty DNA and subsequent repair of that DNA segment and that DNA segment only. Work has been successfully done modifying T-cells in this manner - hence CAR-T therapy where the effectiveness was initially proven on several CLL patients that had run out of options.

in reply to AussieNeil

Research I grant you is in infancy but have read about what you have talked about .. And it is the goals with DNA Vaccines to be able to do what you have talked about with encoding to causes desired DNA reaction.

AussieNeil profile image
AussieNeilAdministrator in reply to

I've looked into this more and here are some references to work on DNA vaccines, which started in the 1990's as an extension beyond traditional vaccination techniques:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

who.int/biologicals/areas/v...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_v...

Early CAR-T technology used a modified HIV virus to introduce and edit in the changes to the T-cell DNA.

in reply to AussieNeil

Hi Cheers DNA and encoding is way forward in my opinion DNA vaccines was how it all started.

From bits I have read the using same delivery process but trying to encode cells to turn of inflammatory responses etc

Few things I read was treated with process was ipf cll cancers and pandemic diseases .. that's why I commented on your post DEFO one to watch.

Cllcanada profile image
CllcanadaTop Poster CURE Hero in reply to

DNA vaccines have been looked at in CLL targeting the immunoglobulin V region, mostly in mice...

A study done at MDAnderson in 2002, enrolled 2 patients but was terminated...

clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show...

With over 1 million epigenetic changes in CLL it will be a long time before this gets sorted out...

I think that CRISPR and other technologies hold more promise in CLL, we are just beginning to explore the full potentual of Mabs, with new targets being discouvered every year...

Never say never, but small molecules and better targeting of the BCR are the current paths with the greatest promise at the moment.

~chris

cllady01 profile image
cllady01Former Volunteer

Ah, as we were taught as children--sharing is a good thing. I am too cynical in regard to the oligarchical path that seems to be gaining control to say anything more and sleep tonight.

I Wish for that sharing and cooperation model discussed.

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