Montreal Neurological Institute going ‘open’ to accelerate science

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6271/329.full

by brahmwg • 11 years ago

29 9 11 years ago

science.sciencemag.org

It will be interesting to see how the open collaboration requirement works in practice. Presumably it only requires the external collaborators to agree to openness, and not their institutions.

jordigh• 11 years ago

This is kind of exciting. I wonder if we'll be able to play with BigBrain:

https://muhc.ca/newsroom/article/first-ever-3d-atlas-brain-b...

They include freely providing all results, data, software, and algorithms;

Wait, what? That's unheard of in science. They're really all going to be publishing their source code? All of it?

The MNI already has quite a bit of free software, such as MINC:

http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/ServicesSoftware/MINC

But they really are going to publish everything else? That's amazing!

tudorw• 11 years ago

This is becoming a bit of a movement, without the underlying software to examine, scientific results cannot be fully verified independently, entropy makes the software conditions hard to replicate to repeat the exact experiments, so it's good to see a big name on board.

redlollipop3• 11 years ago

One way to deal with the "complexity of the problem" is to actually keep patentability and license out the patents to start-ups or established companies that can actually do something with them. I guess this would require more effort to match up/recruit the institution's patents (assuming they have any useful ones) to companies that might be interested. But economically, in terms of getting their research translated to the bench more quickly, this is an established model that might be more effective in the long-term.

Indeed, "Participation is voluntary, and researchers can pursue patents on their own, but MNI will not pay the fees or help with the paperwork." This basically shifts responsibility from the institution to the researcher; not sure how this is a good idea.

thaw135793• 11 years ago

Patents and licenses seem like financial solutions, but aside from keeping people funded, how would they help with complexity? I suspect much of the complexity is in the basic science, and the "open science" approach is meant to make it easy for many people with fresh ideas to contribute.

redlollipop3• 11 years ago

If you read the article, the "complexity" refers to the lack of translation from bench to clinic. IP is the fundamental currency to attract investment to get scientific discoveries through the regulatory process. You can still have "open science" in the sense you are using this term and have patents; see CRISPR/Cas9 as a prime example.

Montreal Neurological Institute going ‘open’ to accelerate science

Related Stories