Isaac Yonemoto is an optimist if nothing else.
Yonemoto, a Ph.D. researcher looking into a cancer-fighting compound known as 9DS, is reaching out to Bitcoin users to raise money for further testing.
“Research on this compound has been abandoned twice, so third time’s the charm,” he told CoinDesk.
The 9DS compound is in a preclinical stage, but tests so far suggest it has the possibility to become an anti-cancer drug one day. Tests show effectiveness against kidney, skin and breast cancer.
Yonemoto said 9DS works by interrupting the DNA replication process in the cell, like jamming some kind of wedge into a zipper you’re trying to undo.
A big motivator for Yonemoto is open sourcing the research, thereby making any molecules created available for anyone to reproduce.
He is calling this Project Marilyn. No patents will be coming from this project, making the potentially developed drug “accessible to all parts of the world,” he said.
In the spirit of openness and democracy, he has thus begun a campaign seeking Bitcoin donations.
“By donating to this you’re helping to legitimize Bitcoin as a transaction medium. One of my dreams is to be able to finance an original anti-cancer research idea — I have one percolating now — entirely off of Bitcoin.”
At the time of writing, Yonemoto is about 18% of the way to his goal of 10 BTC. Any interested donors can find the Project Marilyn donation page here.