Open Source Drug Discovery Gathers Steam

The Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) program, a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) initiative uin India, recently expanded its community to include over 6,000 researchers from 130 countries, actively engaged in drug discovery efforts for a variety of diseases as registered users of its SysBorg 2.0 portal. CSIR is India's largest research and development (R&D) organization.

Considered to be a brainchild of Dr Samir Brahmachari, director general, CSIR, this program was initiated in September 15, 2008. The OSDD website has stated that this response by the scientific community has been heartening, as it reflects the commitment of the members across the globe for the cause of affordable healthcare for all.

The OSDD is a CSIR-led team India consortium and a global partnership with the vision to provide affordable healthcare to the developing world by providing a platform for collaborations to solve complex problems associated with novel therapies for neglected tropical diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, leshmaniasis and others. It is a community driven open innovation platform to address the unmet need of research and development of drugs for diseases that affect the developing world. The OSDD is supported by direct funding from Government of India to the tune of  $12 million (Rs. 46 crore) with an overall project outlay of about $46 million...