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Three young scientists thing they have a way to defeat antibiotic resistance:
Three college-age scientists think they know how to solve a huge problem facing medicine. They think they've found a way to overcome antibiotic resistance. Many of the most powerful antibiotics have lost their efficacy against dangerous bacteria, so finding new antibiotics is a priority. It's too soon to say for sure if the young researchers are right, but if gumption and enthusiasm count for anything, they stand a fighting chance.
[...] Last October, Stanford launched a competition for students interested in developing solutions for big problems in health care. Not just theoretical solutions, but practical, patentable solutions that could lead to real products. The three young scientists thought they had figured out a way to make a set of proteins that would kill antibiotic resistant bacteria. They convinced a jury of Stanford faculty, biotech types and investors that they were onto something, and got $10,000 to develop their idea.
[...] "The way that our proteins operate, that if the bacteria evolve resistance to them, actually the bacteria can no longer live anymore," says Rosenthal. "We target something that's essential to bacterial survival." Bacteria have managed to evolve a way around even the most sophisticated attempts to kill them, so I was curious to know more about how the proteins these young inventors say they've found worked. "We're not able to disclose, unfortunately," says Filsinger Interrante. It's their intellectual property, she explains, that they hope will attract investors. "We think that our protein has the potential to target very dangerous, multidrug-resistant bacteria."
Peer review, meet news review.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:45PM
No, I'm saying they should just publish so that anybody could manufacture it.
Why would they do that when they could patent it, then license it for manufacture to multiple companies?
Because that's not the purpose of research?
Another thought, publish and patent aren't mutually exclusive. They could publish the research AND apply for a patent.
Actually, they are. The point of publishing is to make the knowlege available to everybody.
Pats on the back and having something named after you doesn't put food on the table. How do you propose they should be rewarded for their innovation?
Pats on the back and having something named after you = more job opportunities, which do put food on the table.
By them giving it away, they would be handing GigaPharmaCorps profits with nothing in return.
And as well as GigaPharmaCorp, NanoPharm also gets to manufacture it.
Even if a drug comes out of this that is quite expensive, it is still better than having no drug at all.
"No drug at all" isn't going to happen. If the drug's expensive to manufacture it will be expensive to buy (whether by the patient or the government via a civilised subsidy scheme). But letting anybody make it will lower costs (is GigaPharmaCorp really afraid of competition from some little guy?).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.