How open sourcing became the life sciences’ superpower
When we think of public participation in the life sciences, clinical trials are often the first thing that comes to mind. Yet time and time again, the public have contributed much more than testing new medicines.
From using personal computers to simulate protein folding to helping design potential drugs, citizen scieWhen we think of public participation in the life sciences, clinical trials are often the first thing that comes to mind. Yet time and time again, the public have contributed much more than testing new medicines.
From using personal computers to simulate protein folding to helping design potential drugs, citizen science is opening up new ways to approach biomedical research. These projects show how pooling knowledge, resources, and ideas can help researchers tackle problems that might otherwise take years or require substantial investment to solve.
Folding@home (2000s)
Proteins are not static structures. Their changing shapes determine how they function and interact with drugs. Molecular dynamics simulations study these changes but require substantial computing power. Launched in 2000, Folding@home pooled the spare processing capacity of volunteers’ computers to run many simulations in parallel, advancing research into protein folding, misfolding, and molecular behaviour.
The work expanded to receptor signalling, enzyme dynamics, and ligand binding—processes relevant to drug discovery. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the network grew to more than one million active users and briefly exceeded the exascale computing threshold. This shows how a distributed community can provide computing capacity beyond the reach of many individual labs.
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Open Source Malaria (around 2011)
Malaria remains a major health challenge, while parasite resistance threatens existing treatments. Research for diseases concentrated in lower-income populations can also struggle to attract commercial investment.
Founded in 2011 with support from Medicines for Malaria Venture, OSM set out to improve compounds with antimalarial activity through an open, patentless process. Data, ideas, and progress are shared openly. Contributions relate to medicinal chemistry, compound synthesis, biological testing, and computational analysis (project history; OSM principles).
Transparency can reduce duplicated experiments and expose both successful and unsuccessful results. OSM has investigated several compound series, aiming to identify a candidate for Phase I trials rather than claiming an approved medicine. Its wider lesson is that open records can improve how limited R&D resources are used, especially where commercial incentives may not support conventional discovery models.
Open Insulin Foundation (around 2015)
Originally launched as the Open Insulin Project in 2015 at a community biology lab in Oakland, California, the initiative set out to develop an open model for small-scale insulin production. Volunteers are developing organisms, protocols, and affordable, repairable equipment for producing and purifying insulin analogues (Open Insulin Foundation).
The project also illustrates citizen science’s limits: lab production is not the same as a consistent, medical-grade product approved for use. Quality assurance, regulation, and reliable supply remain challenges. Nevertheless, Open Insulin expands public participation beyond drug discovery to the technologies and processes that determine whether medicines can be produced and accessed.
COVID Moonshot (2020)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, one promising target was the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro), an enzyme for viral genome replication, making it an attractive target for antiviral discovery.
Started in March 2020, COVID Moonshot brought together more than 150 scientists and other contributors to design and evaluate potential inhibitors. It combined crowdsourced molecular designs with computational modelling, machine learning, experiments, and structural data. Crucially, the resulting scientific data were shared openly, allowing researchers outside the consortium to learn from results and refine designs (DNDi project overview; research publication).
The programme advanced compounds into preclinical evaluation. Its initial lead was discontinued, but a backup compound was selected as a preclinical candidate in 2025. It is not an approved medicine, but the work generated evidence for further development with affordability and access in view.
Open Source Pharma Foundation collaborative projects (2021–present)
The Open Source Pharma Foundation (OSPF) aims to support affordable treatments for unmet needs, particularly neglected infectious diseases. One barrier is that relevant evidence can be scattered across papers, datasets, and institutions, making connections difficult to spot.
OSPF has worked with technology partners and the Mayo Clinic Center for Tuberculosis on disease-specific knowledge bases and knowledge graphs covering tuberculosis, Nipah virus, and chikungunya. Using machine learning and natural-language processing, these tools connect research evidence and can be updated as new information emerges (OSPF research platform). Contributions can include building shared infrastructure that helps researchers navigate evidence, generate hypotheses, and coordinate work across organisations. OSPF also promotes open clinical research: with India’s National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, it has publicised a multicentre Phase 2b study evaluating metformin alongside tuberculosis treatment, with an open protocol and commitments to share intellectual property and data (OSPF projects).
Conclusion
Citizen science cannot replace pharmaceutical R&D, but it can contribute computing power, candidate improvement, method development, data sharing, and connecting fragmented knowledge.
Clear questions, accessible data, appropriate credit, validation, and sustained funding remain essential. When these conditions are met, citizen science can broaden the pool of people and resources tackling difficult problems, and make the resulting knowledge more useful to the wider research community.
The Galien Foundation Poll Results
As the 20th annual Prix Galien USA Awards approach, we have been looking at how the history of the awards reflects the evolution of pharmaceutical innovation.
Over the past few months, we asked the BioKnow community three questions about therapeutic progress, industry leadership, and the changing landscape of scientific recognition.
The responses offer an interesting comparison with the Prix Galien record.
Which therapy area do you think has shaped medicine the most?
When asked which therapeutic area has had the greatest impact on medicine, 59% of respondents selected Oncology.
That assessment is consistent with the history of Prix Galien USA. Over the past two decades, nearly one-quarter of all medals have been awarded to innovations in Hematology and Oncology.
The concentration of awards reflects decades of investment in cancer research and the advances in targeted therapies, immunotherapies, and precision medicine that have transformed treatment.
Which company do you think has won the most Prix Galien medals globally?
Novartis emerged as the top choice in our global Prix Galien Hall of Fame poll, receiving 39% of the community’s votes.
The results align with the historical record. Novartis leads with 77 medals since 1970, followed closely by Merck & Co. with 76, Roche with 54 and Pfizer with 48.
Just one medal separates the two leading companies, reflecting decades of scientific contributions and sustained recognition at one of the pharmaceutical industry's most prestigious awards.
Which Prix Galien category do you think has grown the most over the past five years?
In our third poll, 39% of respondents identified Startups as the fastest-growing Prix Galien category.
Introduced in 2022, the Best Startup category has awarded 10 medals in four years, making it the fastest-growing category in Prix Galien USA history.
Its introduction reflects the increasingly important role of emerging biotechnology companies in early-stage research, new therapeutic approaches, and the development of technologies that may shape future standards of care.
Who Will Join the Next Class of Prix Galien USA Laureates?
Across all three polls, the BioKnow community’s leading responses aligned with the historical Prix Galien record.
The results highlight several developments in pharmaceutical innovation: oncology’s enduring influence on therapeutic progress, decades of scientific achievement from established industry leaders, and the increasing recognition of emerging biotechnology companies.
On October 29, 2026, the 20th annual Prix Galien USA Awards Ceremony will take place in New York City, recognizing the scientific achievements and medical innovations that have distinguished themselves across the industry.
Twenty years of awards offer a remarkable record of how medicine has advanced, from discoveries that established new standards of care to technologies that have fundamentally changed the possibilities for treatment.
The next class of laureates will add to that history, providing another perspective on where scientific progress is being made and which innovations hold the greatest promise for patients.
As the 20th anniversary approaches, which breakthroughs do you believe deserve a place among this year’s Prix Galien USA laureates?
