SCI/TECH: Is Open Source Biotech a Trade-Off?

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A paper appearing in this week's edition of Nature is antiseptically entitled: "Gene transfer to plants by diverse species of bacteria." But the information that lies within may herald a revolution in biology.

The paper describes two new technologies: TransBacter, a method for transferring genes to plants, and GUSPlus, a method of visualizing where the genes are and what they do. Behind the research, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, is a team of scientists who want to provide the technologies as a "kernel," modeled on the Linux movement, as the beginning of perhaps the first practical offering in open-source biology.

Researchers who want to develop technologies based on this kernel can use it as they wish if they agree to a flexible license issued by Biological Innovation for Open Society, or BIOS. The initiative is being spearheaded by Richard Jefferson, also founder of Cambia, an agricultural life science institute in Canberra, Australia.

For the vision to become reality, BIOS plans to reach out to these entities with its BioForge website, which it launched Wednesday. Scientists can deposit and obtain scientific information on the site.

"This is important, fundamental agricultural technology moving into the commons," said John Wilbanks, executive director of Science Commons, a group working to make it easier, and legal, to share scientific data. "This is the type of tool that, in increasing numbers, is being patented. To use the operating system metaphor, this is Print-F for plant genomics. Imagine trying to build any piece of software if the print function required a patent license."

Jefferson is interested in seeing small-time farmers, rather than big companies, benefit from his efforts.


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