A Proposal For An Incentivized Synthetic Biology System Subchain On The Steem Blockchain Platform

By Transhuman

Graphic courtesy of Wikimedia

Introduction

Synthetic Biology has emerged alongside the Internet and Genomics in a milieu of ever growing computer power. Furthermore, the internet and abundance of computer resources has led to the development of blockchain technology. The convergence of these four technologies can provide a vehicle for doing transparent, incentivized, synthetic biology.

Blockchains

Blockchains are large computer networks that function as a distributed autonomous organization (DAO). Blockchains are concerned with assets, trust, ownership, money, identity, and contracts. Crypto-currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Steem are examples of blockchains.

Digital assets like scientific articles, and other scientific data such as digital laboratory notebook entries can reside on a blockchain. Blockchains facilitate trust because there are many nodes in the network and there must be a consensus before actions are taken. Ownership of a scientific text can be specified in a blockchain. If two texts enter the blockchain at the same time, their timestamps can resolve which was submitted first. Money is another aspect of blockchains because they can generate their own currency which can be used to give incentives to scientists. Bitcoin is the prime example of a crypto-currency on a blockchain with a market capitalization of $ 9,877,936,873, well within the definition of a large cap company. Steem, with a market cap of $ 239,499,128, is a more recent crypto-currency which has been engineered to allow developers to use the Steem blockchain as a platform for any projects they would wish to create.[1] Scientific work fits this schema. In addition, identities can be registered for people, companies, websites, software packages, and many other entities on the Steem blockchain. Blockchains can also readily facilitate multi-signature contracts. As an illustrative example, let us suppose a synthetic biology institute developed a genetic strain that had potential for weaponization. The pertinent text and data could be locked in the blockchain with access allowed only under a contract situation whereby a signature of authorized parties permits access.

Open source software, like Steem, allows rapid technological advancement because of the free flow of creative ideas. On the other hand, the scientific community has been around for a long time and operates under procedures that worked well in the 17th century when the printing press was the workhorse of communication and the scientific journal the main channel for documentation of science. This design is antiquated. “Science is broken”[3] and in need of updating. There is a lack of transparency and we need to redesign the incentive structures in science.

“One of the most effective ways to promote high-quality science is to create free open-source tools that give scientists easier and cheaper ways to incorporate transparency into their daily workflow: from open lab notebooks, to software that tracks every version of a data set, to dynamic document generation. Moreover, scientists who use open-source software are not locked into proprietary software platforms with unclear monetization plans. If philanthropy or government funds new tools that the open-source community can iterate and improve on, the per-dollar return on investment can far exceed the costs.”[2]

Incentivizing Science

The scientific community works hard to advance science. Under current methodology, large sums of money are spent and much time is consumed by the scientific journal publication system. Writing up their experiments and conclusions takes them away from the laboratory. Journals charge to publish their work and judge it on the basis of whether the experiment was successful, in other words, had a positive result. Unfortunately, much of scientific work consists of failed experiments that are swept under the rug. All scientific data is important and needs to be archived for posterity so that failures are not repeated. The problem is the scientific community needs an incentive to do this.

“Incentives should be changed so that scholars are rewarded for publishing well rather than often. In tenure cases at universities, as in grant submissions, the candidate should be evaluated on the importance of a select set of work, instead of using the number of publications or impact rating of a journal as a surrogate for quality.”[4]

The scientific journal as centerpiece for the scientific community has become passé. With the advent of open science, the internet, computerization and blockchain technology the time has come to rethink how science is executed and ensure that high quality science is rewarded.

“Steem is a blockchain database that supports community building and social interaction with crypto-currency rewards. Steem combines concepts from social media with lessons learned from building crypto-currencies and their communities. An important key to inspiring participation in any community, currency or free market economy is a fair accounting system that consistently reflects each person's contribution. Steem is the first crypto-currency that attempts to accurately and transparently reward an unbounded number of individuals who make subjective contributions to its community.”[6] Steem could provide a way to incentivize scientific efforts within the scientific community.

Conclusion

I propose developing a computerized synthetic biology system on a Steem “subchain”[1]. This system will be transparent with an improved incentive structure, based on Steem crypto-currency rewards modeled after a Reddit-style-meritocracy. Incentives could be paid for completing registered experiments and other categories of remuneration specified by “smart contracts”[5]. The result will be Leukippos Institute[7] empowered to execute synthetic biology experiments utilizing NCBI data banks and other computerized instruments such as machine learning algorithms, AI and automated manufacturing. A synthetic biology organization such as Leukippos Institute could utilize digital laboratory notebooks and other modern scientific methodology to advance the science of synthetic biology by gathering and preserving experimental data leading to eventual synthesis and open science publication on the Steem blockchain.

Footnotes
[1]https://steemit.com/steem/@dantheman/how-anyone-can-build-custom-apps-on-steem-right-now
[2]http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1403.full
[3]http://www.vox.com/2015/6/27/8854105/new-science-guidelines
[4]http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/prof-no-one-is-reading-you
[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_contract
[6]https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
[7]http://www.leukippos.org