SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 1) by Uncle_Al on Wednesday August 10 2016, @03:53AM
And I'm sure the folks at Leland Stanford's Junior University intend to take their cut.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 10 2016, @03:59AM
This has been a problem since at least the 1600's, with inventors (such as Newton/Leibniz) publishing abbreviations in Latin to avoid giving more information to their competitors, but allowing them to show they had the idea first if another did publish it. One idea was to promote the useful arts by securing for their inventors the exclusive right to their discoveries (at least for a limited time.) It would fight the duplication of effort, such as reinventing calculus. What ever happened to that idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @05:36AM
It got extended to last infinity minus one days and nothing has entered the public domain since.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:28PM
That is copyright patents actually expire. Still has not stopped the new parasite scam of reformulation of medications so you have new patented formula to protect thus extended it again.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:34PM
What stops someone else from making the old version of the medicine?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @01:53AM
due to the old version having a catastrophic issue with it that kills a subset of people under certain circumstances? :)
It's the windows model brought to the big pharma business :)
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday August 11 2016, @05:11AM
What stops someone else from making the old version of the medicine?
The OLD, UNIMPROVED version n-1 edition?
Actually, nothing - that's why we have generic label drugs.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @04:22AM
It's much nicer than secret science.
(Score: 2) by Walzmyn on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:39AM
Right. These three individuals were motivated by the prospect of getting rich. They were backed by people who are already rich inspired by the process to get even richer. Despite how much that hurts your little feelings, their motivation (seems to) has produced a marvelous new wonder drug that will benefit all mankind (we hope).
Your solution is to force it to be given to all mankind, pay the discoverers a piddling stipend and remove the motivation for the next group looking to make themselves rich and the world better at the same time.
Move to Cuba if you like socialism so much.
(Score: 1) by CreatureComfort on Wednesday August 10 2016, @01:12PM
Or have produced a complete scam, which is highly more likely.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-18/elizabeth-holmes-admits-theranos-technolgy-fraud-restates-voids-years-test-results [zerohedge.com]
Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet, Impossible means not yet done. ~~ Julia Ecklar
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:25PM
Or have produced something useless, because humans don't go very far once all the good bacteria inside us get perma-killed.
(Score: 2) by Walzmyn on Thursday August 11 2016, @12:27AM
Oh I'm 90% sure it's bogus.
And even if it's real, I want YEARS of trials showing it won't kill the good bacteria right along with the bad.
But I was responding to the economic argument.
And, failings and scammers and misfires are part of the capitalist system. Caveat emptor.
(Score: 4, Touché) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 10 2016, @09:24PM
Despite how much that hurts your little feelings, their motivation (seems to) has produced a marvelous new wonder drug that will benefit all mankind (we hope).
Dr. Jonas Salk laughs at your pathetic entrepreneurial spirit and money-grubbing ways!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 10 2016, @04:39AM
Stanford, right? Let's do another prison experiment.. This time with "Enhanced Interrogation"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 10 2016, @04:22PM
(Oh, I recently watched /An Honest Liar/ - a very interesting documentary if Randi's on your radar, and SRI and its lunacy gets a mention.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday August 10 2016, @05:43AM
It's too soon to say for sure if the young researchers are right, but if gumption and enthusiasm count for anything,
There's Kickstarter!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @06:56AM
I submittedan ac comment all g the lines of hoping this couldn't transfer to humans, it showed up but now is gone...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @06:06AM
As one AC to another, I will fix this for you!
I submitt edanac com mental grue the lines of hopping
I hope now you can receive the help you so clearly need. Is a new keyboard in order? Or is the problem purely psycho-somatic?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday August 10 2016, @06:56AM
any time a discovery has obvious potential to make money, the researcher will want to make that money themselves. Giving it to a company to make all the profit is always going to be frustrating for the ones that do the hard work.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:40AM
Just like the musicians get screwed by the labels.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:57AM
Or any genuine "creatives" by any "suits"...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @07:01AM
yeah. here's what I think: let's everyone make a list of people who say that them being paid for their antibiotics is more important than distributing the antibiotics. and let's add their pictures next to their names.
patents and other "intelectual property" (whatever that can mean) are social constructs. if these people believe that their monetary wellbeing is more important than other people's health, I say let them. but I want to know their names; if I see them hit by a car and in need of aid, I want to know that I can ignore them because they are not part of MY society.
helping those in need is ALSO a social construct, and since they feel free to ignore it, I think society should feel free to ignore it as well. "before I get you off the road, I want to talk to a lawyer. I thought of this particular way of grabbing you, and I think it may be a new method that I can patent. then it would be problematic to do it in public, because people might steal the idea... I have to think of my children's future you see"
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:02AM
Why would all property not be a social construct?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:53AM
well... if you understand the concept of property as "this thing here is Bob's, everybody needs to ask Bob if they want to do anything to/with it, even if Bob is not around right that minute", then yes, all property is a social construct.
if you understand the concept of property as "if you touch this Bob will beat the crap out of you", then not all property is a social construct.
my food, for instance, is mine because I will physically fight to protect it from people who would want to touch it or smth. I like the fact that society also protects my food, but I generally don't need society to agree that my food is off-limits (as a young healthy male, I would generally be able to protect it from other individuals).
as far as I can tell, anything labeled "intelectual property" needs the whole society to agree it is property, since the "beat the crap out of offenders" won't work if the whole society decides to offend the restriction.
this is basically the balance: you need to keep enough of society happy with you being in control of "X", so that the happy percentage can enforce your claims of property of "X".
when it comes to medical treatments, the happy percentage is basically made up of uneducated idiots who don't know what's good for them or society as a whole (if they did, then treatments for bacterial infections would be free and much better handled in general).
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Wednesday August 10 2016, @06:09PM
And if all of society decided you were hogging the good food and decided to take it from you, you wouldn't be able to defend it either. I suppose I'm bristling at the dual standards. In one case (physical goods) you are assuming a single person on person conflict, with you present, alert equally armed. In second case (intellectual goods) you are assuming the entire society decides to gang up on you. I would contend the difference has far more to do with the strength of opposition than the nature of the property.
Now, you may think that society will gang up on you in one case, but not the other, as a rule. But that seems like it would need evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:28PM
I'm sorry, poor word choice on my part.
what I wanted to say is that violent enforcement won't work if every individual who has minor contacts with Bob decides to "steal", since it's hard for Bob to run around after all of these first-hand offenders, and they can immediately propell the information to other people that Bob has never met.
case in point: Bob invents a melody, sings a song while picking berries. someone hears this song, and then repeats it out of earshot, etc. Bob can certainly beat the crap out of the people he hears singing the song, but he will never find all of them. so he needs everyone to agree that whenever they hear a song, they ask who invented the melody, and then search out the author and reward them in some way.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:31AM
Sure it's easier to detect someone taking the food from your table. But what happens when you are out getting more food, and your stockpile is just sitting there? Or having a car, parking it, and going into a building?
(Score: 2) by pendorbound on Wednesday August 10 2016, @06:24PM
You forgot the other, more important portion of that happy percentage. The medical companies that make billions trading on people's lives, plus the entire financial sector to the degree it profits on that indirectly. The uneducated are a nice filler so they can wave their hands and point to "the majority" to bolster their claims, but at the end of the day it's all about who puts the most cash in lawmakers pockets.
It's lovely to see Stanford educating the next generation that their personal payday is more important than people's lives. I'm sure that's going to work out well for society in the long run.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:48AM
That's a great idea - except then we won't have anybody working on developing new antibiotics at all. Developing pharmaceuticals, even at the research level, is an expensive undertaken. Nobody will invest in this if they do not think there is likelihood of a payday. And even if the researchers were the most pure-hearted souls who wanted to help people, the best way to get their technology out there is to secure investment from a Big Pharma to make it happen... which requires keeping the value of your IP so that they will be enticed.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 10 2016, @06:33PM
So who ponies up the $10K in your scenario?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:31PM
same people. the difference is that the payment is for developing the idea, not an "investment" to be repayed tenfold from future profits. researchers should be paid for getting results (and they already are), not for "distributing the results".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @07:28AM
Right guys so, let's make a condom... wait no, an ANTIBIOTIC that changes color if you have an STD.... wait no, that changes color if your have an INFECTION. We better patent this shit NOW dudes and wait for the cash to roll in.
3) ???
4) Profit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday August 10 2016, @07:50AM
Just *claim* you have you have the "magic cure".
Hide behind "intellectual property rights" to avoid demonstrating anything.
Hide behind "hold harmless" clauses to legally protect yourself from fraud if your thing does NOT work.
Insist on being paid before you reveal.
Now, sell your pig-in-a-poke to an investment group.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @12:36PM
Elizabeth Holmes, is that you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @01:28PM
Let me see if I've correctly identified the ??? part of the usual get rich formula.
1. Claim to invent a wonder drug, wonder diagnostic, or cold fusion and hide from scrutiny behind imaginary property laws.
2. Sell it to an investment group.
3. Pay some small fines and take a 2 year hiatus when it doesn't work.
4. Profit! (And bask in articles about being the world's youngest female billionaire.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @02:08PM
n/t
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @08:57PM
Expect to hear from our lawyers. That is our patented business process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @07:29AM
I have the same problem in real world. I dont have time to bother with the whole IP thing which seems to be a huge hassle of bureaucracy. But I probably should, and I understand where these guys are coming from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @07:29AM
This is like that [paddle8.com].
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday August 10 2016, @07:38AM
Three college-age money grubbers think they know how to solve a huge problem facing medicine.
Shameless arseholes with blood on their hands. Not scientists.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday August 10 2016, @08:51AM
They may only be claiming to have something, using these newfangled IP laws to avoid demonstrating their stuff works.
If they use the proper businesstalk in their agreement, they can completely avoid responsibility that their thing even works at all, but guarantee they get paid.
They may be just fishing for investors.
You know how that game works... "Investment Counselors" pick up on this, and market this to unsavvy workers, retirees, anyone with money, and cut themselves a brokerage fee for placing the investor with groups like this. Then the thing goes south. The investors lose, but everyone else gets paid. The investor is left with reams of paper full of phrases like "unexpected results", "disappointing quarterly return", and whatever.
Many years ago, when I began to save for retirement, I also trusted a "Professional Financial Advisor" to help me. I ended up paying thousands of dollars for three-ring binders full of legalese describing how not only I lost my money, but how much of it went to the management and legal trades in my behalf "helping" me recover my losses.
Everybody got paid from my loss. Please do not repeat my failure. I had to go to work to get the money. They just shook hands and wagged pens.
I was naive and trusted the well-dressed man who used banking words like "fiduciary responsibility" and the like.
Those were just "feel-good" words to give me an illusion he was "on my side". In reality, he was just hocking up whatever words that would sell me on the idea of trusting him with my retirement funds.
My advice: First-pay off all debts. You can always borrow more money if you have equity. Its not cheap to do it this way though. But you are paying through the nose for anything you owe, but they won't pay you peanuts on your savings...
Second: Buy your own house. Rental makes your landlord rich, not you.
Third: As time goes by, you may have a little surplus. Put it back into your house with long-term improvements... especially if you can do it without tripping a property tax reassessment. Things like nice block walls, planters, anything that will last until you sell your house without deteriorating.
Education is an excellent investment. Not necessarily for the employment, but your own knowledge as to how stuff works. Its not cheap to have someone else to come out to solve your problems. Know how to fix stuff. Know how to build stuff. And, if employed, make sure you know how the stuff you have at work works. Otherwise, be a really top-notch ass-kisser.
Bad investments: In my case, the worst was what professional advisors advised. Next to that, it was my car. I can't really diss the car too much, as it was a good car and got me back and forth to work for forty years, but had I bought it as a monetary thing, rather than as a tool, I lost about half its value driving it off the lot.
Lesson learned, the next machine I bought I got from Craigslist, and I could re-sell it for what I paid for it a year ago. By that time, my knowledge of what I needed in a machine and Google's help in finding out what to look for was of great value to me. You do not want a problem-laden by design type vehicle, no matter how fancy the seats are or if it has power locks or snazzy logo.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:52AM
Unless you are going to put in a huge amount of time into it, there are only four things to know about investing:
1. Use tax sheltered accounts first (IRAs, 401k, etc) - you get an instant rate of return in the form of lower AGI or in some circumstances, a tax credit
2. Low cost index funds - Vanguard funds are hard to beat
3. Sell only as a last resort
4. Dollar cost averaging - don't time the market, don't panic during a crash or recession, don't sell because things are doing well - buy, buy, buy
If you wanna get fancy, read The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham - it is how Buffet got so rich. Read anything said or written by Warren Buffet.
If you left your money alone during the 2007-2008 recession, you would be up about %40 + dividends. If you were buying the whole time, you would be up much more than that, probably more than double.
TLDR; - Don't listen to financial advisors, index funds are VERY hard to beat, leave your investments alone, you can't predict the future - don't time the market
(Score: 2) by moo kuh on Wednesday August 10 2016, @08:42AM
The U.S. is a capitalist society with for profit health care.
There is a lot of hate towards them wanting the money if everything works as advertised. What is unfair about the actual creators getting rich off of something of this magnitude rather than somebody who is already rich, such as established pharmaceutical companies? As long as the drug gets distributed at a reasonable price, does it really matter if they make it instead of current companies, which we know can be rather cruel? Once it is patented, it is public knowledge at that point, and it will expire in a reasonable amount of time; reasonable compared to copyright anyway. Just because they own the patent doesn't mean they won't license it to established companies to ramp up production.
Basically, can you blame them for wanting their slice of what could solve one of medicine's biggest problem? Are all of you haters saying they should just give it out to current companies to make bazillions while they get nothing? If the U.S. wasn't a capitalist society, sure, by all means, give it away.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:48AM
Funny how it works.... if its the poor guy who needs ( even a life or death thing ) what the rich man has.... free market rulez!
If the rich guy wants what the poor guy has... Eminent Domain! ( Kelo vs. New London) [wikipedia.org]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday August 10 2016, @11:34AM
The U.S. is a capitalist society with for profit health care.
Which is a really big part of the problem.
Basically, can you blame them for wanting their slice of what could solve one of medicine's biggest problem?
Yes.
Are all of you haters saying they should just give it out to current companies to make bazillions while they get nothing?
No, I'm saying they should just publish so that anybody could manufacture it.
If the U.S. wasn't a capitalist society...
The world wouldn't be stuck with GigaPharmaCorp an all the associated problems.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @01:14PM
Why would they do that when they could patent it, then license it for manufacture to multiple companies? Then they could get rich AND keep prices down through market competition. Another thought, publish and patent aren't mutually exclusive. They could publish the research AND apply for a patent.
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? So world changing innovation deserves no reward, but simply having means deserves millions (billions?) simply by having said means? By them giving it away, they would be handing GigaPharmaCorps profits with nothing in return. Even if a drug comes out of this that is quite expensive, it is still better than having no drug at all.
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Wednesday August 10 2016, @10:10PM
How do you propose they should be rewarded for their innovation?
Doing a good thing for society is reward enough. If it isn't, then we'll just have to get by without your contributions.
As long as the creators are able to have a reasonable living (and if they're working for Stanford, then they sure as hell are), then any profiteering over the top at society's expense is nothing more than exploiting other people's misfortune and misery.
(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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday August 10 2016, @01:15PM
Nobody's going to manufacture it. It hasn't been through clinical trials yet.
I've been involved in research, including animal and clinical trials. A *lot* of promising compounds never make it to clinical trials. Some that do don't make it through, either because they turn out not to work in humans, are toxic, etc. I don't have data on how many get to clinical trials but are never approved for use.
This article is written like they've solved the problem and are sitting on a gold mine. In all likelihood, they aren't. Good for them (and us) if they are, but they've proven exactly nothing. They won a local competition. That's all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @04:27PM
The days of drugs being manufactured exclusively by big corps are coming to an end. New technologies will allow many drugs (not just meth) and biologics to be manufactured by one machine in the garage.
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday August 10 2016, @05:47PM
Old technologies allow drugs to be manufactured in the garage. Compounds that are tested now aren't necessarily manufactured by big pharmaceutical corporations. The point remains that we have no reason to believe this protein actually does anything yet, or that if it does anything in a petri dish, it would actually work in a human, or if it actually works in a human, that it wouldn't have other negative effects that make it not therapeutically viable.
I'm not against stuff like this, I've just seen it before. A friend died of cancer ~17 years ago and right after a breakthrough treatment was discovered by a researcher I'd followed for years (I was in cancer research at the time). Oh, the terrible timing of it all. Except that it turned out the treatment didn't really work in people. Even if it had been discovered before she was diagnosed, it was irrelevant. It didn't work.
The time to get excited about this is when it makes it through a successful clinical trial. Until then, they're college kids who have an idea good enough to win a small competition, but won't release any data so anybody else can even begin to meaningfully speculate if there's anything at all here. Stuff like that happens all the time.
An MD/Ph.D. friend of mine likes to say that it's nice that compound X kills cancer in a petri dish...but so does a handgun.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday August 10 2016, @09:22PM
The days of drugs being manufactured exclusively by big corps are coming to an end. New technologies will allow many drugs (not just meth) and biologics to be manufactured by one machine in the garage.
Maybe on both of these statements, but the cynic in me knows that big corps tend to respond to either of these sort of threats by buying legislation putting a stop to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @02:15AM
vote with your feet.
Governments only work if they have enough money and manpower to operate. Take away enough of either and they will collapse until their own weight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @12:34PM
but if gumption and enthusiasm count for anything
It doesn't, we're doomed!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Wednesday August 10 2016, @12:53PM
If they aren't going to publish, and I can't buy it, who cares?
And besides, the proteins were already there, what are they hoping to patent? Yeah, I know , the system is broken they'll find something...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10 2016, @02:01PM
...it is probably a scam.
>If they aren't going to publish, and I can't buy it, who cares?
Clueless "investors" eager to be fleeced, most obviously.