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Correspondence

Nature 403, 591 (10 February 2000) | doi:10.1038/35001228

Open Innovation Challenges

Will cell alliance breed bureaucracy and leave contributors out?

Stephen J. Haggarty1 & Miguel Ramalho-Santos1

  1. Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, 7 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

Henry R. Bourne2Alfred G. Gilman3
  1. Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-0450, USA
  2. Department of Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75390-9041, USA

A recent News story reported that a US-based "multi-laboratory, multidisciplinary initiative" called the Alliance for Cellular Signalling (AFCS) seeks to provide a more integrated view of cell-signalling pathways ( Nature,  402, 219; 1999). To accomplish this, the AFCS hopes to "map how molecules in a cell interact" without bias towards particular proteins, through the collaborative efforts of systems engineers, biologists and informaticists.