It appears that the idea of Open Source is being applied to many different fields of research and development. Just look at Project Marilyn on indisci.org, which has the noble goal of making cancer drug research open source.

We believe that pharmaceuticals can be developed without patents, which would result in a better and less expensive healthcare for everyone.  “Project Marilyn” will develop a new anti-cancer compound, 9DS, which has very promising scientific results and is the best candidate for proving our social cause.

The project has been featured on Techcrunch and wired, and made its goal. These crowdfunded projects seem to point the way to the democratisation of how money is directed.