In 2022, Brain Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase, let slip on Twitter that he had been selling off some of his Coinbase shares, with the intention of funding scientific research and fueling the growth of Decentralized Science (DeSci). Following Armstrong’s tweet, VitaDAO, a decentralized organization for longevity research, secured an investment from pharmaceutical titan Pfizer. This was a spotlight moment for DeSci, bringing it front and center in the public eye.

Imagine a world where blockchain technology transforms how we do science, making everything more open, more transparent, and governed by the people. It is about breaking down those ivory towers and building a playground for collaborative discovery. Thanks to smart contracts and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), DeSci is paving the future where we all get involved in the science journey, changing the way in which we uncover, share, and use knowledge.

This article explores challenges faced by traditional scientific research and how DeSci offers innovative solutions to these issues, all through the lens of someone who has transitioned from an academic researcher to a crypto venture capitalist.

1. What is DeSci?

DeSci is a movement that aims to utilize the Web3 technology stack in establishing a public infrastructure supporting various aspects including funding, creation, review, and storage of scientific knowledge and research. This initiative encourages researchers to openly share their work, gain recognition for their contributions, and enables easy engagement and contribution to scientific research.

DeSci tackles crucial issues in the early stages of research, including funding through on-chain DeFi liquidity, organizational governance via decentralized autonomy, and transparency in the scientific process through open data and results.

2. Bridging the “Valley of Death”

The biggest problem in academic research is often refer as “Valley of Death” — the gap where good basic research gets lost on its way to making a real-world innovation. The goal of DeSci is to ditch the old-school gatekeepers of grants and publication. Instead, DeSci uses smart contracts and DAOs to decentralize control, crowdfunding and open access to research, creating an ecosystem where science is more inclusive, open and accessible to all.

While the scope of science is broad, the current focus within the DeSci landscape is largely on human translational research, emphasizing three key areas: funding, publishing and data sharing.

• Funding: Redefines conventional funding models through mechanisms like DAOs and quadratic funding, aiming to make funding more accessible and fair.
• Research and Publishing: Promotes a more inclusive and diverse scientific community by rewarding reviewers and fostering collaboration through token incentives.
• Data Storage: Prioritizes secure and accessible data storage and provides a transparent framework for Intellectual property (IP) management and data sharing.

Now, let’s look into the broken pieces in science and see how DeSci is transforming the way we do sciences.

3. Funding Mechanisms within DeSci

Securing funding in traditional science is often daunting, with bureaucratic obstacles and strict regulations. Researchers might find themselves tweaking their projects to suit the preferences of potential funders. On top of that, a significant portion of funding comes from a few major players, primarily from the private sector. This dominance can create a conflict of interest that might influence research outcomes.

However, innovative solutions are emerging to address these funding issues, such as the Molecule Protocol and VitaDAO.

3.1 Molecule Protocol

Molecule started as a web2 company but has since evolved into a decentralized platform on the Ethereum blockchain. Molecule’s goal is to create a marketplace for biopharma research data, IPs, and patents.

Molecule’s key features:

• Marketplace Discovery: Facilitates matchmaking between researchers and funders for translational research projects.
• Molecule Finance: The platform converts off-chain research agreements, such as Sponsored Research Agreements, into IP-NFTs (Intellectual Property Non-Fungible Tokens). These IP-NFTs grant research rights and future outcomes (such as intellectual property, royalties, and data).

In a sense, Molecule plays a similar role to OpenSea in the decentralised world, but with a unique position focusing on IP and research projects that are mostly off-chain.

Molecule ecosystem also incubates BioDAOs through Bio.xyz. These DAOs, consisting of patients, researchers, and supporters, fund research in specific therapeutic areas such as hair loss treatment, psychedelic medicine, and longevity, with VitaDAO being the most well-funded.

3.2 VitaDAO

VitaDAO, a decentralized organization focusing on longevity research and drug discovery, has made headlines by securing a significant investment of $4.1 million led by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. VitaDAO acquires IP data and achieves decentralized governance through a DAO structure, giving out funds for early-stage research projects and spinning out the projects as startups for commercialization. Individuals can earn VITA tokens by contributing to the community, which grant them governance rights in VitaDAO.

While VitaDAO has achieved fundraising and governance on the blockchain, its main revenue comes from off-chain activities, such as licensing research data and collaborating with medical institutions. The revenue generated is reinvested into the DAO’s treasury to support more projects, creating a positive cycle. Currently, VitaDAO has funded 22 projects, deploying over $4.2 million.

3.3 Challenges in DeSci Funding

While Molecule and VitaDAO have made considerable progress in resolving the funding challenges, several obstacles persist:

1. Funding Amount: The funds raised through DeSci projects are modest compared to traditional routes. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) alone allocated approximately $2.1 billion for translational research in 2018, indicating the long road ahead for decentralized science to bridge the funding gap fully.

2. Project Quality: While the advisory board’s structure is clearly defined, the identities of the actual members who vet projects are not transparent. Also, the DAO model reliance on community voting can sometimes prioritize popular trends over genuine research value.

3. DAO Centralization: A significant concern within VitaDAO’s governance has emerged, highlighted by the adoption of several proposals, such as VDP-132. The voting power was disproportionately wielded by the top two holders, who, with a combined 1.1 million VITA, influenced a vote of total 2.5 million VITA. This pattern is not unique to VitaDAO but can also be seen in AthenaDAO, pointing to a broader issue of potential governance centralization.

4. Transforming Scientific Publishing

The scientific publishing industry operates on a flawed paid-to-publish system, characterized by complex peer review processes, slow publication timelines, and exorbitant fees. Top journals, such as Nature, charge over $11,000 per publication, making them financially inaccessible to many researchers. Additionally, this system often fails to acknowledge the significant contributions of unpaid peer reviewers, who play a crucial role in maintaining the quality and integrity of published research. As a result, there is a growing call for reform in the scientific publishing industry to make it more transparent, affordable, and inclusive.

Let’s now explore how DeSci is revamping scientific publishing to create a more inclusive and accessible ecosystem.

4.1 DeSci Lab

DeSci Lab emerges as a pioneering platform to transform how science is done, offering tools that make science more open and address current problems. It helps publish and combine different kinds of scientific outputs like research, codes, datasets, and videos into easy-to-use research objects. DeSci Lab gives researchers the means to support science that is repeatable, open, and fair. This platform is a big step towards a future where scientific information is easily shared and worked on together.

4.2 ResearchHub

ResearchHub, co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and having raised $5 million in June 2023, is another platform promoting open science. It introduces ResearchCoin (RSC), a utility token designed to incentivize publishing, reviewing, critiquing, and collaborating openly. RSC enables users to create bounties, tip contributors, and participate in community decision-making, building a more collaborative and inclusive scientific ecosystem.

4.3 Key Issues in Decentralized Publishing

As platforms like Research Hub push the boundaries of scientific collaboration and publishing, they face challenges that must be addressed to reach their full potential:

1. Interoperability: Integrating decentralized publishing with existing publication management systems like Elsevier or Springer is key. Achieving seamless operation with third-party applications and blockchain technologies is essential for widespread acceptance.

2. Credibility: The academic world’s emphasis on journal impact factors as a measure of credibility presents a challenge for emerging decentralized journals. These new platforms may be viewed as less trustworthy than traditional journals, potentially slowing down their acceptance among researchers.

5. Catalysing Collaborative Research

The standard approach to scientific research, often confined within academic institutions, often limits collaboration and innovation. Moreover, the credibility of research is in jeopardy, with 65% of researchers struggling to reproduce their own studies and reports of 8% fabricating data, pointing to a pressing need for reform in how scientific work is validated and shared.

In response to these challenges, innovative platforms are emerging to redefine collaboration in the biosciences:

5.1 LabDAO

LabDAO is an open-source tool that allows researchers to discover tools and projects on an open exchange. It aims to create an open exchange of wet-lab and dry-lab tooling by defining standards around biomedical tools to increase reproducibility and transparency. LabDAO incentivizes contributors to develop applications and provide instrumentation.

5.2 Prime Intellect

Prime Intellect is tackling the computational barriers faced by researchers by making advanced computing and artificial intelligence more widely available. It achieves this through a decentralized AI platform that democratizes access to AI development and model training. This approach enables a broader spectrum of developers and researchers to utilize cutting-edge technology, significantly enhancing their capacity to innovate and solve complex problems. By providing more accessible and distributed computing resources, Prime Intellect supports the creation of AI solutions that can be applied to a wide range of scientific and technological challenges.

5.3 Challenges in Collaborative Research

However, a significant challenge arises when research is conducted online by collaborators who may not know each other personally: determining the ownership of IP. Questions about the jurisdiction of IP also come into play, further complicating matters. This highlights the necessity for innovative frameworks that are tailored to these new forms of team collaboration and workflows to ensure IP rights and responsibilities are clearly defined and managed.

5.4 The Integral Role of Physical Infrastructure

The role of physical infrastructure in biotech is fundamental. While the digital aspects of DeSci grab attention, the need for legal entities to own and maintain IP and data assets off-chain highlights that the physical component cannot be ignored. After all, the primary goal of DeSci is to bring new drugs and therapeutics to the market.

Vitalia is a project aims at building a decentralized city that accelerates bio companies, leveraging the physical infrastructure of new cities like Próspera in Honduras. This area, known as a special economic zone, offers a regulatory framework more conducive to research, clinical trials, and administering new treatments. Vitalia is one of the 32 projects funded by Vitalik Buterin, who has put up 166.5 ETH of funding for Zuzalu-style events like Vitalia.

6. Revolutionizing Data Collection

Connecting patient data with researchers continues to be a large unsolved problem. Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars every year annually to access data they need for research and development but are still underserved. One key reason is the fragmented and opaque nature of the patient data market.

6.1 Data Lake

Data Lake aims to connect patients with researchers who need medical data to support their research, enabling the discovery of cures and new treatments for diseases, and improving medical care and patient outcomes. It involves sourcing medical data from donors’ healthcare providers, anonymizing it, and enabling donors to share it with researchers. This approach benefits both hospitals and data donors by allowing them to participate in the rewards of the medical data economy.

6.2 Ensuring Security and Compliance

Security is always a major concern in data collection and sharing, especially with sensitive medical information. One challenge is ensuring patient data is protected from unauthorized access, breaches, and misuse. Compliance with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA is also crucial.

7. Conclusion

DeSci is like a breath of fresh air for the science world, pushing us towards working together more and opening up access like never before. While it may not address every challenge within scientific research, it introduces a promising and innovative approach, offering new way to tackle old problems.

Projects like Molecule and VitaDAO are crafting new ways to fund and collaborate that shake up how science is traditionally done. Similarly, platforms like DeSci Lab and Research Hub are changing the way in how scientific discoveries are shared, building a world where science is open and welcoming to everyone. Additionally, initiatives like Vitalia are highlighting the importance of physical infrastructure in supporting bio companies and advancing research.

However, as DeSci grows, it faces significant challenges, including addressing concerns about publishing credibility and navigating the complexities of partnerships. Overcoming these obstacles will need some smart thinking and a steadfast commitment to transparency and responsibility.

Despite these challenges, the promise DeSci holds to change the face of scientific research is immense. DeSci could open up the world of science in a way that gives power to the researchers and speeds up discoveries for everyone’s benefit. It is worth noting that DeSci is not a one-stop solution for all issues in scientific research, but it is certainly showing us a new path worth exploring.

Watching all this play out and seeing where it takes us is definitely something to look forward to.

References:

1. https://ethereum.org/zh/desci

2. https://law.stanford.edu/2023/07/27/unlocking-scientific-innovation-through-decentralized-science-part-i/

3. https://law.stanford.edu/2023/07/27/unlocking-scientific-innovation-through-decentralized-science-part-ii/

4. https://medium.com/paradigm-research/decentralized-science-desci-web3-mediated-future-of-science-2547f9a88c40

5. https://www.pmayr.xyz/the-desci-value-chain/

6.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306457321002089#sec7