Broad SARS-CoV-2 Update (September 27, 2021)

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard physician-scientist Dr. Roby Bahttacharyya provided his latest definitive update on SARS-CoV-2 on September 27, 2021:

Uncommonly Vital Innovation Commons

My brilliant colleagues, Jason Potts (RMIT University), Dietmar Harhoff (Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and the Centre for Economic Policy Research ("CEPR"), and Eric von Hippel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology ("MIT") - Sloan School of Management), and I have written an article entitled "Social welfare gains from innovation commons: Theory, evidence, and policy implications" on what we refer to as the "innovation commons".  An early draft of our article is available for free download here.  Here is its abstract:

Innovation commons – which we define as repositories of freely-accessible, “open source” innovation-related information and data - are a very significant resource for innovating and innovation-adopting firms and individuals: Availability of free data and information reduces the innovation-specific private or open investment required to make the next innovative advance. Despite the clear social welfare value of innovation commons under many conditions, academic innovation research and innovation policymaking have to date focused almost entirely on enhancing private incentives to innovate by enabling innovators to keep some types of innovation-related information at least temporarily apart from the commons, via intellectual property rights.

In this paper, our focus is squarely on innovation commons theory, evidence, and policy implications. We first discuss the varying nature of and contents of innovation commons extant today. We summarize what is known about their functioning, their scale, the value they provide to innovators and to general social welfare, and the mechanisms by which this is accomplished. Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, and with the important exception of major digital platform firms, we find that many who develop innovation-related information at private cost have private economic incentives to contribute their information to innovation commons for free access by free riders. We conclude with a discussion of the value of more general support for innovation commons, and how this could be provided by increased private and public investment in innovation commons “engineering”, and by specific forms of innovation policymaking to increase social welfare via enhancement of innovation commons.

Our general argument is that "if and as private incentives to generate valuable innovation-related information can be sustained – which we will argue is often the case – social welfare will be enhanced when innovation-related data and information are transferred from private ownership to an innovation commons."

As Stewart Brand phrased it (and might have been the first to phrase it this way), "information wants to be free".  This principle holds true for information in the form of data.

O tempora! O mores! (N)O TV!

When I was a grad student, my week was studded with network television shows I allowed myself to watch as treats to reward myself for long hours in the lab.  These included Seinfeld, Frasier, The X-Files, and various British dramas on PBS.  There were no alternatives to network TV back then.

In thinking about what I might watch this Labour Day weekend, I was struck by the fact that none of the options that came to mind - except PBS - involved network TV.  In fact, I drew a blank when I tried to think of a single current network TV series.  Every show I could think of was offered by streaming services.  Although it has snuck up on me, I realize I am almost entirely alienated from network TV.  I know I'm not alone.

O tempora!  O mores!  (N)O TV!

David Liu On Genome Editing

The Sheeky Science Show featured a detailed interview on March 28, 2021, with Professor David Liu about advances in genome editing, particularly the base and prime editing methods developed in his laboratory at the Broad Institute.  Here is the interview:

For full disclosure, I was head of intellectual property at the Broad Institute from 2019 until 2021, which coincided with some of these inventions.

Silly Wonky

Canadian Governor General Mary Simon today allowed the governing Liberal Party to call a snap election for September 20, 2021.  No one knows why an election is necessary in the midst of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, especially since the previous election was less than two years ago.  Nevertheless, this election campaign already features the most bizarre attack ad in Canadian political history.

Let's hope this quixotic video is sui generis.   

A North American Tail: Fievel Comes East

The Northern Grasshopper Mouse (Onychomys leucogaster) occurs widely throughout west-central North America.  Among its distinctive features are three that are quite unmurine:  it is fiercely carnivorous;  as a "werewolf mouse", it howls at the moon;  and, its tail is surprisingly, well, curtailed.  Here is the Northern Grasshopper Mouse that visited our backyard this past Spring:

Our peripatetic visitor has a surprise that extends well beyond its abbreviated tail;  the eastern extent of its geographic range ends several hundred kilometers west of where I took its portrait.  Welcome to the neighbourhood, pioneering murid.

Petrie-Flom Patents

On December 6, 2019, I had the pleasure of presenting what I saw then as the leading issues in patent law related to health at the Eighth Annual Health Law Year in P/Review at Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.  Here is my presentation, followed by other presentations on my panel.

Thank you to Professors Jake Sherkow and I. Glenn Cohen for inviting me to this fun event.

Biologia Sintetica A Pavia

 

Canuck Neutrality

United States President Joe Biden has invited a third Canadian into the inner circle of his administration.  Columbia Law School Professor Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu, who grew up partly in The Six, then received his biophysics B.Sc. from McGill University, will serve on the National Economic Council as a Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy.  Professor Wu joins fellow former Montrealers Vice President Kamala Harris and Professor Elisabeth Beck Reynolds as senior officials in the Biden Administration.  Perhaps smoked meat will now make its way onto White House menu. 

Copyright Moves Beyond Mickey Mouse

 Kansas City PBS published a story by Jacob Douglas, entitled "Free (Steamboat) Willie: How Walt Disney’s Original Mouse Could be Entering the Public Domain", on January 14, 2021.  Here it is.  It was a pleasure being interviewed for this article.