I am a genomic scientist and writer working to practically support open source biology, the life science equivalent of open source software. Open biology has the potential to make biotech more reliable, more predictable, and less expensive than it currently is today.

Science is open source. To work properly, it cannot be overly influenced by politics or the need to earn a profit. The business of biotechnology is not the same as the science of biotechnology: the interests may overlap but they are never identical. Despite this, many people, including leading scientists, believe that commercial development is the only practical route to the development of products. This is simply not the case.

Open source biology advocates that non-excusive development of medicines results in better scientific collaboration and also better economic competition (think "generic drug" pricing models), leading to products that will favor consumers (that means you and me) yet still sustainably support producers. Open source ideas are not yet proven in biotechnology, but they have a good track record in computing.

The basic idea is simple enough: If scientists, perhaps thousands of them, can organize and focus their time and equipment around a realistic biotech goal, they can allocate a fraction of these resources (which are already funded and paid for by their grants) to do R&D collaboratively. As a group, they should be able to shoulder the cost (with, perhaps, the help of some fundraising) of making a new drug or therapy. Who else than these scientists are better equipped to evaluate the results of research data and clinical trials? No matter what, the scientists win by getting to write some great papers, and perhaps making a real impact on diseases they are interested in.

If approvals can be obtained, the work of making and selling the drug can be handed over to generic pharmaceutical companies, who sell drugs for sustainable profit margins on the order of 10%. The result: better cooperation between scientists, and leading edge medicines for you and me at a fraction of the cost, with all the standard FDA approvals still in place.

Now, with the help of of Synthetic Biology, a technology which allows biologists to write DNA code in the same way computer scientists write software, an even clearer path to practical open source biology is starting to take shape. I work with a growing community of young biological engineers working to program biology using open, standardized parts, which makes biological development modular, thus earier and cheaper. It works, and it's exciting!