Zablon Njiru and Andrew Thompson of Murdoch University, and their research team, have developed a relatively simple, low-tech and low-cost blood test for identifying the presence of trypanosome parasites that cause African sleeping sickness.
Instead of selling their elegant innovation to a pharmaceutical company, they have published their method in an Open Access refereed journal called “Public Library of Science: Neglected Tropical Diseases.” Articles in this journal have a Creative Commons licence that allows free downloading, adaptation and sharing of their content provided the authors receive attribution.
Here is the paper:
- Njiru ZK, Mikosza ASJ, Armstrong T, Enyaru JC, Ndung’u JM, et al. (2008) Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) Method for Rapid Detection of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense. PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis. 2(2): e147.
See also:
- Simarro PP, Jannin J, Cattand P (2008) Eliminating Human African Trypanosomiasis: Where Do We Stand and What Comes Next. PLoS Med 5(2): e55 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050055
In the Murdoch case, the ‘public good’ factor is a clear winner in the debate over whether to provide open access to a university’s research output: people in poor and developing countries need low-cost medical and health care, particularly for endemic diseases that don’t occur as widely in developed countries (trypanosomiasis is one; malaria is another). Publishing this particular research in a free, Open Access journal helps to remove economic barriers from potential users of the new technique (assuming that the researchers have not patented the technique itself).
Is the public good a sufficient reason for a university to release all of its innovations for general usage?
Should we seek to earn income from the inventions of our staff?
What about the inventions of students? (Sun Microsystems and the Google search engine both started as graduate student projects.)
In an era when universities are using multiple income streams to offset declining government/public funding, how do we decide when to commercialise and when to donate our intellectual products?
Note: This post was originally published on 6 March, then revised on 11 March. Thanks to Stephen Young for his off-line comments about the original version. As I understand it, Stephen was keen to draw a distinction between the copyright on the research paper and the ownership of intellectual property in the laboratory technique described in that paper. The copyright is covered by the Creative Commons licence; regardless of copyright in the paper, it may still be possible to patent the intellectual property.
2 Comments
In principle the idea of an open commons for social good knowledge can be an excellent way to contribute to the wellbeing of communities, a role that is (or ought to be) important to Universities. However, this route may not always work, particularly where the technology requires investment by someone to get it ready for public use. Clinical trials, and even establishing lines of distribution and advertising (promoting a new great idea) all cost money and if this cost is substantial, and not able to be taken on by state funding or NGOs, for example, then the great idea might in fact never benefit the people it was designed to reach.
All I am suggesting is that commercialisation of an idea/technology is sometimes the only way to ensure people benefit from new discoveries. I am not commenting on Murdoch’s ‘elegant innovation’, for they are no doubt confident that their ideas can be taken up without significant further investment. I applaud this, for sure, but wanted to simply make the point that commercialising a new product may in some cases be the only way to get it to people who need it.
Simon, thanks for your comment — it’s an important point to make, I think.
We face a similar tension in conversations about making course materials freely available. While some want us to adopt an approach similar to the MIT Open Course Ware initiative, we need to balance that public-spiritedness with the reality that the University generates income from licensing some of its courseware to other institutions and organisations. Can we find a sustainable business model that would allow us to do both?