Upcoming #CitSciChat on Biomedical Citizen Science

Posted on by ginger
New Mark2Cure Video added to our youtube playlist!

The Citizen Science Conference in May was very productive, and the last of Mark2Cure's recorded talks is now available on our youtube channel. As previously mentioned, Max delivered the project slam for Mark2Cure and was selected as one of the top three to deliver an abbreviated version during the 'Night in the Clouds' event.

View the two-minute talk here:

Biomedical CitSciChat on Wed. July 19th, at 11:00am PT

Speaking of the conference, we were able to connect in person with a lot of lovely people in the citizen science arena, especially the amazing people from @EyesOnAlz, @CitSciBio, and @CochraneCrowd. Because we're all passionate about bringing citizen science to biomedical research, we organized a panel for a biomedical #citscichat. Caren Cooper (@CoopSciScoop) kindly agreed to moderate the chat as usual, and Pietro (@pmichelu, @EyezOnAlz) was able to convince @foldit's Seth Cooper to join the panel.

What: Hour long chat on biomedical citizen science (#CitSciChat)

Where: online via twitter

When: Wed July 19 2:00pm ET (11:00am PT)

Why: Because citizen science is used in biomedical research too

Who: Everyone interested in citizen science is welcome to join this chat which will be moderated by citizen science expert and author, Caren Cooper. The panel so far includes:

  • Mark2Cure of course! Mark2Cure is a citizen science project for addressing the big data issue of biomedical literature. Citizen scientists help look for clues about NGLY1-deficiency in curated literature. (@Mark2Cure/@gtsueng, @x0xmaximus, @AndrewSu)

  • Cochrane Crowd is a citizen science project from the Cochrane Collaborative, and also looks to make biomedical literature more useful. Citizen Scientists help identify randomized controlled trials so that Cochrane Reviewers can use them to answer important medical questions. (@Cochrane_Crowd, @annanoelstorr)

  • EyesOnAlz/Stall Catchers is a citizen science project from the Human Computation Institute to identify blood blockages in short videos of the brain. Their game is super fun, helps with Alzheimer's research AND they have a major event (Catchathon) coming up. If you would like to host a local catchathon, check out this post. (@EyesOnAlz, @seplute, @Clair_csg, @pmichelu)

  • CitSciBio is NIH's new biomedical citizen science hub. It is sponsored by the Division of Cancer Biology at the National Cancer Institute. There are tools for collaborating, creating projects, and now you can login via your scistarter account. (@citscibio)

  • Fold.it is a long standing, and very successful citizen science game which empowers gamers and volunteers to help determine the structure of proteins important to biomedical research. Seth Cooper from Northeastern University has agreed to join the panel to share about this wildly successful project. (@UWGameScience)

    • Beat the heat and help science!

    Need an excuse to stay indoors, avoid chores, and avoid the summer heat? Look no further! One of our current missions is over 80% complete. Help us finish it!

    Happy Fathers Day!

    Posted on by ginger

    A HUGE thanks to all the dads (and EVERYONE) who has been contributing to make a difference for the NGLY1 families.

    Shipping delays Apologies to international prize and drawing winners who were waiting for their prizes. Most of the international packages that we shipped out in May/June have been returned to us due to customs issues (fortunately, this happened at some point prior to shipping so the postage on these is still good, unfortunately, it took a long time for these to get back to us so we can address the issue). We’ll be trying again to get these out ASAP.

    Max’s original project slam now online As mentioned in our previous newsletter, Max delivered the project slam for Mark2Cure at the Citizen Science Conference in Minnesota. The project slam talks were supposed to have been recorded and still may be released by the Citizen Science Association someday, but we couldn’t wait. Here’s our recording of Max’s project slam. He finished within his allotted four minutes, and was engaging enough to win one of three invitations to deliver an even shorter version of the slam at an even the following day.
    You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kxlhhFLdmM

    You be the scientist! One thing we’ve heard (and quite agree with) at the Citizen Science Conference is that trained volunteers are capable of doing more than simple tasks. Mark2Curators have very much fed into the tutorial process, and played an important role in testing and improving the design of the interface. The entities our users have identified from the text have already yielded interesting clues which we’ve used to expand the set of documents to investigate, and by now, there are users who have read a lot of abstracts—A LOT! If you’ve read something that sticks out in your mind as being potentially related to NGLY1-deficiency, share it with us! We’d love to hear YOUR hypothesis on what might be an interesting term to explore and why.

    Happy Memorial Day weekend!

    Posted on by ginger

    The last few weeks have been a bit hectic, so we've got plenty of news and info to share with you.

    First of all, if you haven't seen it yet, Cochrane Crowd has posted about about our joint webinar and the #MedLitBlitz. If you missed the webinar or had technical difficulties/time zone issues with it, it's available on youtube. The prize packages for the top three participants of #MedLitBlitz are packed and will be shipped either today or early next week (depending on whether or not shipments have been picked up for today or not).

    Secondly, Mark2Cure was at the Citizen Science Association conference from 2017.05.15-2017.05.20, and was fortunate enough to share about YOUR work to an audience of scientists who LOVE citizen science! More than a few researchers stopped to introduce themselves to me and spoke highly of our community! Although it's always weird to hear a recording of your own voice, I recorded my presentation because it wouldn't be fair to talk about the amazing work you've done without sharing it with you! You can find my presentation for the biomedical session in our youtube channel. On a side note, I know the audio quality isn't the best which is why I've transcribed it using youtube's captioning software. If you have trouble hearing the presentation (because of the poor audio quality), please turn on the closed captions.

    Max also delivered two lightning talks for the event, which I hope to upload soon.
    Not available yet, but will be soon In addition to the talks, we had a poster for Mark2Cure and a table at two public events.
    Max spreading the love for Mark2Cure

    We were especially pleased to be so close to our buddy at Cochrane Crowd for this event
    Cochrane Crowd looking good

    Lastly, it looks like one of the missions was completed just as I was settling back in after the conference. A HUGE thanks to everyone that helped complete the carpingly mission. A new mission has been launched in its place, so check it out if you have some free time.