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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research
Forum: OpenZika
Thread: Question the ethics and legitimacy of this project for BOINC |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 63
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I have a question regarding the ethics and legitimacy of this project for BOINC.
Reading about the OpenZika project, I noticed one of the lead principal researchers is CEO of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc. This piqued my curiosity. I did a little research on this company. It is a for profit biotech research company. I've been involved in a number of BOINC projects. It's always been my understanding that all projects are OPEN, academic and/or govt. sponsored but not associated with for profit companies. The knowledge gained from BOINC projects is suppose to be for the equal benefit of all researchers world-wide. Collaborations, it appears, partners with numerous not for profit research facilities at medical universities. For a for profit research company isn't that akin to insider trading? Collaborations is in the business of not only computational investigations, but taking those findings and advancing them to clinical stage trials and ultimately to successful drugs/vaccines. This gives Sean Ekins’ company an unfair advantage over all the other companies trying to find answers for Zika. As the article states "Our work on World Community Grid is only the first step in the larger project of discovering a new drug to fight the Zika virus. Next, we will analyze the data obtained from World Community Grid’s virtual screening to choose the compounds that show the most promise. After we have selected and tested compounds that could be effective in killing the Zika virus, we will publish our results.” I own shares in 3 different bio-tech companies that are working on the Zika virus and have been since the outbreak in 2015. Some who have also been working on ebola and dengue for several years. They'd be at a disadvantage getting this information AFTER Ekins company has had the information for some time before it's published. It could be many months, to years, in advance of the rest of the research community. They could begin investigating the first compounds as they complete project testing that show promising results. Everyone one else will only get that information after millions have been put through the entire process. It seems to me that some researchers, who have previously worked on other BOINC projects, have now gone on to advising and working in major roles with new projects, while associated with or having founded their own private for profit companies, taking advantage of their "inside" information. THIS IS USING BOINC FOR PRIVATE FINANCIAL GAIN---completely against the principals which it was developed for and why most of us volunteer our computers computational power and time. If I've evaluated this incorrectly, I'd appreciate someone clarifying it for me. Although I think the Zika virus needs an all out effort by everyone, I won't be volunteering my computer for this project until I'm sure this isn't a round about way of using us and our computers for private advantage and gain. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Interesting point, the statement
After we have selected and tested compounds that could be effective in killing the Zika virus, we will publish our results could be interpreted in different ways, it could mean as soon as a possible cure is found it will be made available to all to combat Zika - that's fine and I'd have no problem with that, however Collaborations Pharmaceuticals make no mention of doing that, they talk about links between data and Pharmaceutical companies. We provide the drug discovery preclinical and clinical expertise to move therapeutics into the clinic That doesn't sound like a non profit organisation to me and having worked directly with a large pharmaceutical company i'm well aware of the fact that companies who first develop a drug have 6 years of exclusivity (to claw back the huge cost of R&D) before all information relating to that drug become open source. I'd like to be proved wrong but it does look as if we're being used to aid for profit work on the pretext of helping to eradicate disease - which is why we're all here in the first place. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I shall wait a short while to see further comments. If they go to show that the ZIKA science project is being sponsored by a for profit organisation then I will deselect this science. I donate my computer time for altruist reasons, so only completely open and non profit sciences.
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Dayle Diamond
Senior Cruncher Joined: Jan 31, 2013 Post Count: 450 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I shall wait a short while to see further comments. If they go to show that the ZIKA science project is being sponsored by a for profit organisation then I will deselect this science. I donate my computer time for altruist reasons, so only completely open and non profit sciences. Me too. |
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deltavee
Ace Cruncher Texas Hill Country Joined: Nov 17, 2004 Post Count: 4851 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Here we go again. This subject has been debated ad infinitum.
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4713 Yrs
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SekeRob
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 7, 2013 Post Count: 2741 Status: Offline |
Upfront quotes from the WCG website
Dr. Sean Ekins is CEO of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and has over 20 years of expertise using computational approaches for drug discovery. His main interests are to identify compounds for neglected and rare diseases with academic collaborators and to try and work as openly as possible. These screening results will all be made publicly available, opening the door for other scientists to also use this data to help develop Zika treatments. Satisfies my needs to know. Those directly involved always have an advantage [The UD cancer DC project which had Oxford involved, eventually was spun off into an commercial company... Dr Richards you may remember]. For what it matters, most academic research is hooked in with commerce, so what exactly is new? This is going to help speed up the finding of a treatment or cure, great... getting the meds far outstrips my concern over whether someone is going to be making a buck out of this, there always is, no matter what. Ethical, you may debate whether you got suckered in, Legitimate... if in doubt, sue them (is that not what American shareholders and vulture patent trolls do over in the USoA?) |
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sjmielh
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2016 Post Count: 9 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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On the project details page they mention the project goals and there they say the information will be publicly available
The specific goals of the project are: * Screen compounds from the ZINC database, a collection of millions of compounds for virtual screening, against Zika protein homology models. * Screen millions of compounds against experimentally determined Zika protein structures, as soon as these are known. These screening results will all be made publicly available, opening the door for other scientists to also use this data to help develop Zika treatments. But you're right an official statement would be better |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
This is always a problem and as they sa in media there is no free lunch.
I do put my trust for the WCG-teams good judgment and what they work for is what this grid stands for. And if any company or cienteist try to have the grid for maxing their profit i hope and demand that WCG-team says f*ck off and buy your own computer time with a university supercomputer (maybe in a more diplomatic way than I did who). |
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nanoprobe
Master Cruncher Classified Joined: Aug 29, 2008 Post Count: 2998 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I have a question regarding the ethics and legitimacy of this project for BOINC. Reading about the OpenZika project, I noticed one of the lead principal researchers is CEO of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc. This piqued my curiosity. I did a little research on this company. It is a for profit biotech research company. I've been involved in a number of BOINC projects. It's always been my understanding that all projects are OPEN, academic and/or govt. sponsored but not associated with for profit companies. The knowledge gained from BOINC projects is suppose to be for the equal benefit of all researchers world-wide. Collaborations, it appears, partners with numerous not for profit research facilities at medical universities. For a for profit research company isn't that akin to insider trading? Collaborations is in the business of not only computational investigations, but taking those findings and advancing them to clinical stage trials and ultimately to successful drugs/vaccines. This gives Sean Ekins’ company an unfair advantage over all the other companies trying to find answers for Zika. As the article states "Our work on World Community Grid is only the first step in the larger project of discovering a new drug to fight the Zika virus. Next, we will analyze the data obtained from World Community Grid’s virtual screening to choose the compounds that show the most promise. After we have selected and tested compounds that could be effective in killing the Zika virus, we will publish our results.” I own shares in 3 different bio-tech companies that are working on the Zika virus and have been since the outbreak in 2015. Some who have also been working on ebola and dengue for several years. They'd be at a disadvantage getting this information AFTER Ekins company has had the information for some time before it's published. It could be many months, to years, in advance of the rest of the research community. They could begin investigating the first compounds as they complete project testing that show promising results. Everyone one else will only get that information after millions have been put through the entire process. It seems to me that some researchers, who have previously worked on other BOINC projects, have now gone on to advising and working in major roles with new projects, while associated with or having founded their own private for profit companies, taking advantage of their "inside" information. THIS IS USING BOINC FOR PRIVATE FINANCIAL GAIN---completely against the principals which it was developed for and why most of us volunteer our computers computational power and time. If I've evaluated this incorrectly, I'd appreciate someone clarifying it for me. Although I think the Zika virus needs an all out effort by everyone, I won't be volunteering my computer for this project until I'm sure this isn't a round about way of using us and our computers for private advantage and gain. Using that logic why even crunch at WCG at all? After all it is run by IBM which is a for profit corporation who gets a very large tax write off by supporting and maintaining this very expensive network. Just sayin.
In 1969 I took an oath to defend and protect the U S Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and Domestic. There was no expiration date.
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hiimebm
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Oct 19, 2014 Post Count: 305 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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My personal opinion is this: The thing that is one tier ahead of "who gets it first?" is "Does anybody else besides the #1 get it at all?". At the same time, I'm worried that if somebody does develop a vaccine/medicine using the data that we process, but jacks the price up by 300+% (Martin Shkreli, anyone?) because they have exclusive access to the data and can do whatever they want with it, then nobody will be treated due to the massive price. <It defeats the purpose.In summary, it's not who gets it so much as it is what they do with it, as long as it's ethical and in good nature.
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