Biotechnology - Genomic and Proteomics/Commons based cases in BGP

Report April 2009

Research questions:

1. Commons based cases (the cases that we know will appear in the right part of the quadrants)
   • Identify cases
   • Correlate them with their main outputs (Data. Narratives. Tools)
   • How and in what extent they are “experimenting” or “adopting” commons-based approach. Are they adopting OA policies, for instance? Are they adopting Social Responsible License approaches?
   • Identify these cases and treat them as entities that will also be placed in our mapping device (the quadrants)
   • Identify what actors are participating on this and what actors are just observers (Use the questionnaire to guide your research when appropriate - Carol will select specific relevant and helpful questions)

• Chiron
  • Output: Data. Chiron maintains connections to lots of individual scientists. Reported 1,400 informal agreements and collaborations with other companies and 64 formal collaborations with other companies (Powell pp. 72-73)
  • Comment: Seems Chiron has built a collaborative network qualitatively different from that of other firms. Likely worth investigating more

• Ensembl Genome Browser
  • Output: Data. Aims to automatically annotate the genome, integrate that annotation with other databases and share the product freely on the web
  • Governance: Collaboration between the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
  • Comment: Interesting case - seems to be using data that's in the commons, managed by private organizations, to produce a new product that is also in the commons

• National Center for Biotechnology Information
  • Output: Data. Creates publicly accessible data and analysis systems for biochemistry and genetics
  • Governance: Division of National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health
  • Comment: Probably does not count as a common-based system. The tools, while publicly available, do not appear to be publicly edit-able. Might be more useful to see what if any collaborative enterprises develop from this work

• Two Michigan Biotech companies decide to share their lab and equipment
  • Output: Tools. Two companies didn't have the money to maintain separate labs, so they merged their efforts.
  • Comment: It might be interesting to talk to these people personally and ask what if any collaboration this sort of proximity has brought

• BMC Biotechnology
  • Output: Narratives. Open Access Biotech Journal. Anyone can submit, though maintains a peer-review process
  • Governance: The site itself is part of Springer Science+Business Media

• CAMBIA / BIOS
  • Output: Tools (e.g. new databases) and Narratives (studies and papers)
  • Governance: Non-profit NGO. Funding through the Norwegian Government, Horticulture Australia, and the Lemelson Foundation
  • Should definitely take a look at the BioForge project, which aims to encourage collaboration between research groups in the life sciences

• Distributed Annotation System
  • Products: Data, Narratives and Tools. Aims to create standard protocol for exchanging genomic annotations
  • Governance: Distributed, though with self-appointed leaders
  • Comment: This falls under the gray area of the definition of 'commons'. It is much closer to Lessig's definition, where something like TCP/IP could be considered a commons.

• ENCODE
  • Products: Data. Open consortium to identify all functional elements of the human genome. Data is made publicly available
  • Governance: Part of the NIH
  • Comment: Perfect instance of commons-based production.

• HapMap
  • Products: Data. Coordination between researchers in Canada, China, Japan, Nigeria, United Kingdom and the United States to identify disease-causing genes. Data released into the public domain
  • Governance: Combination of both public and private organizations (http://www.hapmap.org/groups.html)
  • Another good instance of commons-based production

• Health Commons
  • Products: Data, Narratives and Tools. Coalition of organizations aim to share data under a common set of terms and conditions
  • Governance: lead by 501(c)3 Science Commons

• Human Genome Project
  • Products: Data and Tools. Genome sequence available publicly
  • Governance: funded through the NIH
  • Comment: Another interesting instance of the commons - the government used the power of funding to mandate open access requirements from the organizations which participated.

• Personal Genome Project
  • Products: Data and Tools. Aims to make personal genome sequencing possible and affordable
  • Not clear that this is an instance of a commons. Right now, seems to me to be a free service.

• Open Wet Ware
  • Primarily products: Data, Narratives and Tools. Sharing best practices in biological engineering
  • Governance: Elected officers, funded through the NSF

• Open Biological Ontologies
  • Primarily products: Data, Narratives and Tools. Aims to support community of people developing biomedical ontologies
  • Governance: Coordinating editors from the Berkeley Bioinformatics Open-Source Projects - there does not seem to be a system of elections

• Science Commons-Neurocommons
  • Primarily products: Data and Tools. Open Source Knowledge Management Platform for Biological Sciences, currently focusing on neuroscience
  • Governance: run through Science Commons

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Bibliography for Item 10 in BGP
Biotechnology_-_Genomic_and_Proteomics