Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) is a CSIR India (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India) led team India Consortium with global partnership with a vision to provide affordable health care to the developing world by providing a global platform where the best minds can collaborate & collectively endeavour to solve the complex problems associated with discovering novel therapies for neglected tropical diseases like Malaria, Tuberculosis, Leshmaniasis, etc. OSDD is a translational platform for drug discovery, bringing together informaticians, wet lab scientists, contract research organizations, clinicians, hospitals and others who are willing to adhere to the affordable health care philosophy. It is a concept to collaboratively aggregate the biological, genetic and chemical information available to scientists in order to use it to hasten the discovery of drugs. It will provide a unique opportunity for scientists, doctors, technocrats, students and others with diverse expertise to work for a common cause.
CSIR India (www.csir.res.in), one of the largest publicly funded research organizations in the world, plays a key role in the development of industry in India by providing it with technologies. In particular, it has been one of the key drivers of the Indian pharmaceutical industry. Prof Samir. K Brahmachari, Director General of CSIR, is the Chief Mentor of OSDD and Mr Zakir Thomas is its Project Director. OSDD is supported by direct funding of Rs. 46 Crores (~US$12 Mn) from the Government of India with an overall project outlay of about US$46 Mn.
The OSDD consortium launched in September 2008 has more than 5,700 registered users from more than 130 countries around the world, and has emerged as the largest collaborative effort in drug discovery. Launched on the three principles of Collaborate, Discover & Share, it is a community driven open innovation platform seeking to address the unmet need of research and development of drugs for diseases that affect the developing world. It's objective is affordable health care.
Individual researchers, academic/research/medical institutions willing to make health care affordable, are welcome to join the OSDD platform. For details please contact Mr Zakir Thomas (zt@csir.res.in) and visit the
OSDD website (www.osdd.net).
