On the DTRA $1M Algorithm Challenge to ID non-host organism in sequencing data
December 2012 –DTRA announces the 1M Algorithm Challenge to characterize a clinical sample from DNA sequencing data.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/dtra/algorithm/prweb10233480.htm
The challenge was managed by the online platform Innocentive: https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9933138
Innocentive is actually interesting to look at: (CIA through IN-Q-Tel) crowdsources scientific problems to solvers (http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/11/29/how-in-q-tel-helps-cia-scout-for-innovative-technology-model-for-other-agencies/)
Although very enthusiastic at first, I did not participate in the challenge because the solution I envisioned did not comply with the requirements. It seems so constrained that I had the impression they were giving software specs for a relatively cheap price….but it would be tremendously interesting to compare the 1M price with the usual cost or funding obtained for developing research software (side note NSF awarded 100K — Award #1060776 Prototyping GenoTHREAT a biosecurity solution for synthetic genomics). Other critics of this challenge targeted their “mysterious” scoring algorithm. Interestingly, the deadline has been extending.
The winner is announced, and I’ll be curious to learn more about their solution and what it becomes…http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2013/09/controversial-pentagon-dna-analysis-contest-names-champion
to be continued!