Work packages: An Overview 

Work Package 1 - Targets - all non toxic sites- starts with a whole range of computational activities including Systems Biology research. This package brings together the computational strengths and reinforces the concepts of open source movement by participation of academia, institutions and industries with strong inclination towards Open Source. It also includes setting up of facilities and networks, and the OSDD Portal.

Work Package 2 - Expression of targets- deals with experimental expression of protein targets. Success of this work package is an important component and this work package brings in the true concept of sharing experimental reagents and chemicals in open source. 

Work Package 3 - Screen development- involves screening of targets discovered using large chemical libraries in order to identify the inhibitors with potential to become drugs. This package implementation may call for the participation of Contract Research Organizations as well. Some assays may be developed using smart innovative molecules. 

Work Package 4 - in silico docking and identification of a library of chemicals for specific screening -can be viewed as another very important computational aspect with its aim focusing on filtering or forestalling molecules with potential toxicity. 

Work Package 5 - Micro array gene expression for human cells and tissues with the best inhibitors- Modern genomics technologies of microarray would be used to build transcript profile and linked with Work Package 4 as an overlap to check the mechanisms of the best inhibitors on the host. 

Work Package 6 - Lead optimization on the non-toxic hits - which is an essential module of the drug discovery program. 

Work Package 7 - Medicinal chemistry - Synthesis of analogues which have nano-molecular binding to the target but do not alter the expression profile of host cell significantly compared to the native un-intervened state. 

Work Package 8 - Proteomics based lead affinity column to check for human cellular protein binding - to filter the potent lead with minimum binding. 

Work Package 9 - Pre-Clinical Toxicity of the Lead Compounds- in order to develop a  pharmacological profile of the investigational drug 

Work Package 10 - Clinical Development of New Molecular Entities - would look into the evaluation of new molecules so as to establish its safety, tolerability and efficacy and would be aimed at faster and more cost-effective development of the new drugs. 

All of these WPs taken together shall steer this endeavor firmly towards affordable drug development. 

Contributions

In OSDD, the entire process of drug discovery would be divided into problems open for the entire community to contribute. An idea, software, data, an article or molecule(s), etc that  help in expediting the process of drug discovery will be treated as a contribution.
Challenges: Challenges are well-defined problems posted on the website. Anyone can  solve these problems. Each of the solutions to these problems would be peer-reviewed. Appropriate rewards may be announced for solving them, similar to the incentive model. 

Rewards

A micro-attribution system will be followed for all contributions. Based on the peer-review contributors would get rewards in form of credit points. Each activity or a defined problem will have a per-determined set of points or rewards associated to it.  All probable prospective activity would be given prior points in terms of weightage, for example, lead optimization would have higher weightage than protein expression. The points can be accrued over time for all the contributions to the project. Based on the points accrued by the contributors they would be awarded four levels of Memberships cards (Blue, Silver, Gold and Platinum). Each type of card entails a certain sets of rights, privileges and responsibilities in the entire process. 

Universities, students, scientists – Anyone who wants to solve challenging problems in drug discovery or are ready to share their time/resources are welcome to participate in this initiative. For contributing to OSDD you will need a login followed by acceptance of “terms and conditions”. You may contribute in your area of expertise that may range from in silico target identification to protein purification to clinical trials. Citations should be provided wherever available. 

The open source drug discovery model will exploit the system of monetary and non-monetary rewards that is already part of the scientific establishment—using the prospects of scientific progress, career advancement, and humanitarianism to engage  biomedical researchers.