Production of scientific knowledge relies on collaborative actions, whether for data collection, analysis, constructive criticism or peer reviewing. The digital era, with communities of almost limitless size and diversity, now enables the exploration of new collaborative behaviors. Moreover, the speed of data transfer and instantaneous ressource access renders geographical localization meaningless. With these new practices in place, Science can hardly remain the exclusive property of physical institutions. On the contrary, it could benefit from a more decentralized and inclusive framework. The concrete and recent examples of DIYbio and citizen science movements provide new ways to grasp, share and utilize ressources to perform knowledge production. Building on those, I will offer an insight on what the future paradigm of scientific work could be in the context of open and massive collaborations. Using as a case study Epidemium, an open and collaborative scientific program that investigates cancer epidemiology, I will discuss how this uncovers new perspectives and interrogations on the structural nature of future scientific communities.
Thomas Landrain is co-founder and president of La Paillasse, the first French and world largest community lab that fosters open science and technology. He claims that there is no monopole for great ideas and has been working on re-founding the concept of scientific laboratories for the upcoming era of collective intelligence, fast prototyping and big data. He first did a career in academia after graduating in Genetics from Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris and co-founded the first french synthetic biology lab at Genopole where he did his PhD. He is also the co-founder and CEO of the young startup PILI that created the first renewable and safe inks, biologically synthesised by bacteria. Thomas is a strong advocate of open science and one of the most prominent spokesman for biohacking/DIYbio, travelling the world as a speaker to share his visions and thoughts on the upcoming open biotech revolution. Thomas is also a mentor for Indiebio, one of the world's first accelerator programs for new age synthetic biology start-ups.
Today, La Paillasse has grown into an international network of laboratories with all necessary ressources to conduct prototyping and R&D projects, available to any person wishing to use it. It attracts a large number of budding biologists, physicists, engineers, designers and artists. The last Open Science program launched by La Paillasse is Epidemium, in partnership with Roche Laboratories. Epidemium is an ambitious scientific program tailored for collaborative research that seeks to transform the way we perform cancer epidemiology studies by using only shared and open data.
