... A ... very cost-effective approach [to drug development] is “diversity” or “phenotypic” screens where drug libraries are tested directly against parasites in culture without regard to known or validated targets. ...
The Low-Hanging Fruit site provides a portal by which the community can view hits from these screens and make decisions on which compounds represent the most suitable leads to take to the next step in the drug development pipeline. ...
The apples on the tree at the website represent links to data for the parasites indicated. In some cases, this data is a simple list of hits to be viewed by those individuals and agencies interested in rapid follow-up. In other instances, a more complete database can be accessed under “protocols and statistics” as compiled by Pipeline Pilot (Accelrys) software.
We view this website as both a resource and a challenge. Through Low-Hanging Fruit, we provide our data on an open-source basis to the antiparasitic drug development community at large. We hope this encourages others to pursue these hits, either as potential drug leads or for target discovery and validation studies. ... We also challenge the community at large to provide their data in a similar open-source manner to encourage new collaborations and follow-up. We envision that this website may serve as one component of a larger community database “hub”, linking global efforts in all stages of the antiparasitic drug development pipeline to initiate new collaborations and minimize redundancy of effort.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 11/07/2008 01:30:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
