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SamuelCrees
Cruncher Joined: Apr 16, 2014 Post Count: 3 Status: Offline Project Badges: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
I love the efforts to cure disease, and those who participate in what ever capacity!
I have been trying to interject for a few years, to ask those who know, who are the experts, questions that I observe, if they might help, so may I do so here? I hope so, for it is just a question. Has anyone tried very toxic organic compounds, that dissolve flesh from point of origin, but seemingly in most people do not toxify the surrounding area until it spreads to it? Such as a Brown Recluse venom, which dissolves the flesh, and eats away everything, put into say a tumor? After being in the military and seeing some of our weapons and why they use them as they do, perhaps a humanitarian approach is now needed? Such as Cobra venom, and others? |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I don't have any knowledge in medicine. But I remember, reading somethere, that one of the powers of cancer consists in its ability to form new blood vessels for itself. I may be wrong about this. But if this is true, the venom would quickly spread to the rest of the body, or not?
But even if that wasn't the case. It may be complicated to infect just the tumor with this venom, because one would have to figure out, which tissue is healthy and which is the cancer. Speaking of infection ... look at this interesting article: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/05/15/woma...ped-out-by-measles-virus/ Maybe scientists could use the power of World Community Grid to engineer viruses for other types of cancer? In this article scientists are talking about the destruction of smallpox: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/hea...-of-smallpox-9412451.html Maybe they should wait with this and instead use smallpox as the basis for new virus strains for example against various types of skin cancer? Or maybe something like HIV could be reengineered into a Leukemia killer? |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I have the same worries as Saul. I want to know if these drugs will be patented and sold at a high price, like most cancer drugs, or they will be sold at a reasonable price so that all people can access them.
----------------------------------------I joined today WCG. This is the first medical project I compute for. I usually compute for physics projects. I don't compute for Folding@Home because they patent drugs. I want to know whether WCG does the same. I don't buy lawrencehardin's argument that privately developed drugs through patents are cheaper to produce than state developed drugs. It seems to me that it's just the opposite. For example, medical care in the USA, with a private health system, is way too much expensive than a public health care system like we have in Spain. I think the same should be true for drug development. Also, I don't think the final price will be regulated by the pharmaceutical company. If the drug is patented, they can charge how much money they want to the patients. This happens all the time when there is a monopoly--and that is what a patent is. There are lot of examples of that behaviour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imatinib#Costs Yes, the papers and results are publicly available, but the drugs themselves aren't. If they are patented, nobody can produce them for 20 years except the patent owner. How many children will die of cancer in the next 20 years? How can you justify a monopoly in life-saving drug production instead of a free market competition? I'm not the only one that dislikes for-profit computing. I know several people in my BOINC team that don't compute for for-profit medical projects. PS: Thaks benaji for the mcm information. [Edit 2 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 7, 2014 10:53:09 PM] |
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Falconet
Master Cruncher Portugal Joined: Mar 9, 2009 Post Count: 3297 Status: Offline Project Badges: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
yo2013,
----------------------------------------I have no idea. Maybe the researchers will sign a contract demanding that the company sell the drug at a reasonable price given how much they have saved by having run their computations in the WCG. I believe that the WCG could attempt to enforce this via the agreement that is signed between the scientists and WCG. We will have to wait and see if any drug comes out from this. If I made the math right, at Amazon, an instance costs $0.07/hour HFCC has 55875 years = 670,500 months which is 489,790,192.5 hours So 489,790,192.5 * $0.07 = $34,285,313.475 So it is a significant saving (more if we used cloud computing prices from a few years back when HFCC first started) not to mention that the company already knows it has to test only 7 compounds. Whether or not the scientists patent the drugs, it is up to them, not WCG. I am not sure if "open-source drugs" exist. I truly hope that if a drug comes out of this, it will be accessible. But the problem is, how would the scientists do what they have to do (clinical trials, etc) without funding? Unless someone wants to start a crowdfunding campaign to help these scientists develop a drug on their own (a campaign which would need millions but I believe it would get it) I don't know how. Grants from maybe the gates foundation? State ones (things in Japan aren't that great...)? By the way, the SN2S project here at WCG, has far as I know, doesn't have any big pharma support but they are approved for human clinical trials, but it is going to take a while to get to them (they are testing the compounds for toxicity, etc) ![]() - AMD Ryzen 5 1600AF 6C/12T 3.2 GHz - 85W - AMD Ryzen 5 2500U 4C/8T 2.0 GHz - 28W - AMD Ryzen 7 7730U 8C/16T 3.0 GHz |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
But the problem is, how would the scientists do what they have to do (clinical trials, etc) without funding? Why don't simply leave the drug unpatented and let the companies compete to do the trials? Also, according to the project updates, Chiba University already did trials on mice. Why can't they do the same on humans? And, if they can't, why don't they let any other governmental organization in the world to try? Why are they so sure that nobody in the world can do the trials except a company with a patent? As for SN2S, I'm computing for them. It's a Brazilian project and I know Brazil government is against pharm patents, or at least, against abusive pharm patents. So, I have no problem with SN2S. I also compute for MCM, because their findings aren't patentable. [Edit 3 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 8, 2014 9:58:04 AM] |
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Falconet
Master Cruncher Portugal Joined: Mar 9, 2009 Post Count: 3297 Status: Offline Project Badges: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
But the problem is, how would the scientists do what they have to do (clinical trials, etc) without funding? Why don't simply leave the drug unpatented and let the companies compete to do the trials? Also, according to the project updates, Chiba University already did trials on mice. Why can't they do the same on humans? And, if they can't, why don't they let any other governmental organization in the world to try? Why are they so sure that nobody in the world can do the trials except a company with a patent? I don't know. Maybe they will get proposals from several companies and then choose one that hopefully will allow the drug to be reasonably priced. Also, they don't have a drug yet. They have 7 compounds that destroyed neuroblastoma cells. Also, they never said that only a company can do the trials: I only said that maybe they can't secure funding on their own. The results are public. If a government organization wants to use the results they will most likely get to the same 7 compounds and maybe a few others. But after the results are published, what anyone does with them is their business, meaning if they want to follow a for-profit path, they can do so, just like they can choose to follow a not-for-profit path. Yes, SN2S however currently has no work at all. ![]() - AMD Ryzen 5 1600AF 6C/12T 3.2 GHz - 85W - AMD Ryzen 5 2500U 4C/8T 2.0 GHz - 28W - AMD Ryzen 7 7730U 8C/16T 3.0 GHz [Edit 1 times, last edit by Falconet at Jun 8, 2014 9:57:06 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The results are public. If a government organization wants to use the results they will most likely get to the same 7 compounds and maybe a few others. But after the results are published, what anyone does with them is their business, meaning if they want to follow a for-profit path, they can do so, just like they can choose to follow a not-for-profit path. If the drug candidates are patented, nobody can sell them to patients apart from the patent owner. True, anybody can do trials, but they can't sell the drug to patients and hospitals, only the patent owner company can sell it, at the price the company whishes. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jun 8, 2014 10:05:46 AM] |
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Falconet
Master Cruncher Portugal Joined: Mar 9, 2009 Post Count: 3297 Status: Offline Project Badges: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The results are public. If a government organization wants to use the results they will most likely get to the same 7 compounds and maybe a few others. But after the results are published, what anyone does with them is their business, meaning if they want to follow a for-profit path, they can do so, just like they can choose to follow a not-for-profit path. If the drug candidates are patented, nobody can sell them to patients apart from the patent owner. True, anybody can do trials, but they can't sell the drug to patients and hospitals, only the patent owner company can sell it, at the price the company wishes. Yes, if they those compounds are patented then they will probably need to receive a royalty on every drug that is sold. But it won't stop other organizations from pursuing their own research based on the WCG results and possibly new drugs. ![]() - AMD Ryzen 5 1600AF 6C/12T 3.2 GHz - 85W - AMD Ryzen 5 2500U 4C/8T 2.0 GHz - 28W - AMD Ryzen 7 7730U 8C/16T 3.0 GHz |
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Falconet
Master Cruncher Portugal Joined: Mar 9, 2009 Post Count: 3297 Status: Offline Project Badges: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Any new updates on the search for a partner?
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TKH
Former World Community Grid Admin USA Joined: Aug 13, 2005 Post Count: 775 Status: Offline Project Badges: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Hi Falconet,
The next update from the HFCC scientists is due in December, I am sure they will update us on the partner status then. Tks. |
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