Biobazaar : the open source revolution and biotechnology /

Science is kept vital and ethical by peer review. But the commercialization of life sciences, particularly the patenting of genetic strains, has created obstacles for researchers hoping to truly serve the public. Might there be an alternative approach? Armed with a biochemistry and legal background, Hope conducts an intriguing investigation into the feasibility of adapting the paradigm of the open-source revolution which has so successfully powered the software industry and made the Internet a global force to biotechnology. After a brisk history of the open-source movement and the evolutionary nature of its collective invention, Hope proposes a bazaar model for biotech's primary fields, agriculture and health care. Cued to the human factor, she handles complex and abstract material with authority and clarity even as she goes into extensive detail and prolonged analysis. It's worth wading through the denser sections for moments of illumination as Hope anatomizes the consequences of the intellectual-property stranglehold of multinational biotech corporations and advocates for the more open, cooperative, and responsible dynamics intrinsic to her vision of the biobazaar. --Seaman, Donna Copyright 2007 Booklist

Australian biologist and lawyer Hope challenges the "commercialization of life sciences research over the final quarter of the last century" in this rigorous, closely reasoned book. Referencing Thomas Kuhn?s groundbreaking volume, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Hope takes a hard look at intellectual property law, which currently protects monopolistic corporations? right to inflate prices for "life-saving drugs or life-sustaining new crops." Sensing "a paradigm shift in the values underpinning life sciences research," Hope seeks to readdress these policies by applying the model of open-source software to the biotech field. She finds a keen analogy in the Microsoft-Linux conflict, which ultimately broke Microsoft?s monopoly and allowed market forces to operate unhindered, ultimately lifting all ships, and devotes an entire chapter to open source licensing which would end "proprietary exclusivity" while maintaining the principles of intellectual property (permitting use or distribution "for free or for a fee-without having to pay royalties to the licensor"). While the plan seems a stretch-necessitating international agreement to revise existing treaties-Hope is optimistic, providing a provocative, highly intelligent and practical argument on a hot topic; though it?s no easy read, policy wonks and scientists will find much to appreciate. (Jan.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.