ReDS Collaboratory Initiative Launched
An international team of bioscientists have come together on a project to develop an entirely open-source -- and intellectual property entanglement-free -- treatment for respiratory distress syndrome, or ReDS. Modeled on successful international open-source bioprojects of the past, including the SARS response and the Tropical Disease Initiative, the ReDS Collaboratory Initiative (RCI) brings together over a hundred top academic and commercial bioscientists, with the goal of creating a ReDS treatment unencumbered by patent or bio-sovereignty restrictions.
Although nearly all of the major pharmaceutical companies have ReDS treatments in development, the pathogen has proven remarkably difficult to fight. The most effective response so far has been Mybu4, the bacteriophage engineered in Russia. While Mybu4 has significant side-effects, and is considered 20% effective at best, the main stumbling block to its deployment has been the insistence by the Russian government that Mybu4 is the sovereign property of Russia, and only they can decide when -- or if -- to release it.
RCI's initial goal is to create an entirely new bacteriophage treatment, unencumbered by any Mybu4 genetic code. The RCI leaders believe that, over the next year, they should have on the order of 5,000 researchers on the project, around the world, all as volunteers.