Update: Dutch 'Big Donor' program a hoax

It turns out the Dutch reality television program 'Big Donor', in which a terminal cancer patient was to select an ailing contestant to receive on of her kidneys was nothing more than an exercise in 'guerilla awareness'. The program aired as planned on Friday, in spite of widespread criticism. At the moment of the big reveal, when the winning contestant would be named, the host of the program announced that the donor was just an actress, though the three contestants, who were in on the stunt, were actual patients in need of a kidney. The goal of the hoax was to raise awareness about wait times for organs.

Who wants to be an organ donor?

The ever permissive Dutch are embarking on a new way to select organ recipients. Big Donor, a new reality show from the producers of Big Brother. In this program, to air later this week, a terminally ill cancer patient will donate a healthy kidney to one of three contestants. The final decision will be up to viewers. After watching short films about the lives of each contestent, a winner will be chosen American Idol-style: by texting in their vote. The producers claim the goal is to raise awareness about the long waiting list, but seems more like a step towards selling organs. It's just unfortunate that the reality title "Survivor" was already taken.

The Cure for Cancer is Now an Open-Source Project

Ever think you had the idea to cure cancer, if only you could just do the experiments you wanted to, the way you wanted, in the lab you designed, the resources you picked out, and the collaborators you wanted to work with? Your time has come. A bunch of US hedge-fund money has been dedicated to an annual $ 1,000,000 Gotham Award for Cancer Research. Basically it's an open-source grant competition. You write up your idea for a high-risk, high-innovation cancer research project, and submit it to the website. The advisory board, made up of a who's who of US cancer researchers, including ISI's most cited scientist Bert Vogelstein, makes sure it's a serious proposal, then posts it on their websites. Others can read, discuss and post commentaries blog-style, and you can then revise your proposal as you see fit. After 8 months or so, based on proposals and authors responses to questions on the website, the $1,000,000 is awarded. The ideas will also be made available to groups interesting in funding cancer research, and if they like your proposal they have the option of contacting you to contribute funds. I think this is great - part reality TV in that pretty much anyone can enter (will Joe Blow from Idaho submit the cure to cancer from a computer in his parent's basement in his tightie-whities?) and part open science. It's interesting that we were just discussing on the bayblab how open publishing a la PLOS One will probably not become mainstream under the current funding structure because it tends to reward prestige, and now here are the inklings of what I think might be a superior, open-source research funding structure for the future. Web-enabled microgranting, direct from the donor to the researcher?