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R&D 100 Awards Now Accepting Entries Online by R&D Magazine

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Entries for the 2015 R&D 100 Awards

are Now Open!

New Easy and Convenient Online Submission Process 

Heads a List of Enhancements to the 2015 Event!

The R&D 100 Awards, known widely as the “Oscars of Invention,” is now accepting submissions for the 2015 competition. The R&D 100 Awards will be presented at the 2015 R&D 100 Awards Conference & Exhibition and Awards Ceremony, to be held at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, November 12-13, 2015.

Start your submission now!

We have made some enhancements that will make it a more exciting and educational program for our Awards entrants and other attendees. Changes to the 2015 R&D 100 Awards include:

A convenient new entry submission process that eliminates paper forms and allows you to submit all your materials on a single platform.

Four new Special Recognition Awards to honor technology and services that radically change the market, promote green technology, and make a significant contribution to society.

Entrants will be able to select the category(ies) in which they will compete, allowing you to target the best fit for your technology or service.

Winners will now be announced at the R&D 100 Awards banquet, from among finalists selected prior to the event.

A new 2-day educational program has been added to the conference.

With these exciting additions to this year’s R&D 100 Awards program, be sure to

start your submission right away!

For more information visit the R&D 100 Awards site http://www.rd100awards.com

Questions?: Contact R&D Editor, Lindsay Hock, at 

Lindsay.Hock@advantagemedia.com, or by phone at 973-920-7036.

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2014 YEAR-END STATEMENT

by Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN 

Director and Founder, Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence

Dear Board Members, Business Community Members, Clients and Team Members

I welcome all addressees to this e-mail to rejoice with us at LEADERS IN PHARMACEUTICAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE — AS WE CELEBRATE OUR 2014 as follows:

A.  PHARMACEUTICALINTELLIGENCE.COM —>>Our Open Access Online Scientific Journal

From: “WordPress.com” <donotreply@wordpress.com>

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 01:49:03 +0000

To: <avivalev-ari@alum.berkeley.edu>

Subject: Your 2014 year in blogging [pharmaceuticalintelligence.com]

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/annual-report/

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/12/29/2014-in-review/

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 230,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 10 days for that many people to see it.

The busiest day of the year was December 10th with 2,133 views. The most popular post that day was The History of Hematology and Related Sciences.

In 2014, there were 1,082 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 2,609 posts.

 

B.  OUR EVOLUTION and Record accomplishments

 

  • In 4/2012 Aviva Launched Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence

(LPBI) as an Equity Sharing entity to become a Holding company, initially as

an Electronic Scientific Media entity — The “parmaceuticalintelligence.com” — Open Access Online Scientific Journal

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/

  • In 10/2012 Aviva Launched the BioMed e-Series — 15 title e-Books in FIVE

e-Series in Medicine

BioMed e-Series

  • In 6/2013 we published our first e-Book on Nitric Oxide on Amazon.com,

Kindle edition

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DINFFYC 

  • In 12/2014 we have SIX READY e-Books in Medicine in QA in the Pipeline

Cardiovascular Diseases: Volumes 2, 3, 4

Genomics Volume 1

Cancer Volume 1

Metabolomics

Plan for 2015: FIVE e-Books in the Pipeline

Cancer Volume 2 – Internal Editor

Genomics Volume 2 – I am interviewing an Editor

CVD Volumes 5, 6

Physiology, Pharmaco-Therapy and Genomics – Larry H Bernstein, MD, Author and Editor, See it in Series E, Volume 3

  • In 8/2013 we were approached by ASI, Inc and by ValveCure, Inc. – to assist in Funding Finding. The interactions has led to development of new Intellectual Property. We have BDs assigned to both Start Ups.
  • In 9/2013 we were approached by the Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai to organize Scientific Delegations of Patent Holders to meet with Private Investors in China
  • Since 4/2013 — Aviva was granted TEN times a Press Passes to cover for the Scientific Media — BioTech Conferences. Her superior Networking skills with Speakers, attendees and VCs is a very important part for building LPBI Network of Business connections

 

C.      ALL LPBI TEAM MEMBERS are of Two types:

 

1.        Expert, Authors, Writers (EAWs) — All are PhDs, MDs, MD/PhDs or 

PharmDs — I INVITE them to JOIN my Team by their publications and

accomplishment in 15 years after earning a PhD, an MD, etc. Exception to this rule is Dr. Irina Robu, less than 15 years since earned her PhD.

Our TEAM

2.        Business Development Executives (BDs)— Engineers and Engineers with Technical MBAs. All BDs are Technology Execs NONE is a Finance only professional.

Respectively, we do not DEAL only with the Finance aspect of the Business — WE ARE A PROUD SCIENTIFIC  & TECHNOLOGY TEAM — We are not a Finance Team. In Deals with Clients — it is our own technological expertise and accomplishment that advance a deal, the sheer technical KNOWHOW and professional GRAVITAS of each BD which Aviva has cherry picked to join the Team, will be proven to be the key to all our deals.

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/contributors-biographies/business-development-private-equity-investment/

BDs among US

Team Members in Business Development Roles — On Record 12/28/2014:

•   BDs with CV on Line: Dr. Yossi Ezer, Dr. Peter Nelboeck,

Yoel Ezra, Dr. Irina Robu, Dr. Demet Sag (EAW), Dr. Stephen J Williams (Sr.

Editor), Ron Shifron

 

 

D.      OUR 2015 NEW CLIENTS

  • QTG
  • BioTree
  • CPA GROUP in Switzerland
  • INSYS in Switzerland

We sign NDAs and CDAs

AFTER 1/15 — Aviva will start to schedule BDs and Presentations on each of the CPA Eight Companies

AFTER 2/15 — Aviva will start  to schedule BDs and Presentations on each of INSYS four Technologies

 

E.      NEW TALENT ACQUISITION

 

  • ALL LPBI Team members have looked at Aviva’s Profile on LinkedIn, some  called Aviva directly, as well
  • Aviva, has approached them from the Screen of her Profile on LinkedIn, 2-3 out of 20 daily visitors
  • Aviva has +5,600 Life Sciences FIRST level connections on LinkedIn, except to 100 Israeli she asked to connect with, ALL THE REST WITHOUT EXCEPTION HAVE REQUESTED HER TO JOIN THEIR NETWORK
  • Anyone  who join the Team is “at will” and is looking forward to build a Book of Business with us
  • We have ~20 Start Ups as clients and I expect 2015 to be a very active year

Go to

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/vision/ 

  • When we engage in Funding Finding we may actually be doing STRATEGY Consulting on Technology Licensing, M&A and Exit or Partnerships
  • Focus on Funding, Deals & Partnerships 

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/ 

1           Corporate Clients for our Services

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/corporate-clients-for-our-services/ 

2           Funding Cardiovascular Medical Devices Development

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/funding-cardiovascular-medical-devices-development/ 

3           Funding Biologics Development

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/funding-biologics-development/ 

4           Funding Diagnostics

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/funding-diagnostics/ 

5           Funding Partnerships in IP Development

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/funding-partnerships-in-ip-development/ 

6           M&A and Exit

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/ma-and-exit/

7           Targeting Penetration in New Markets for High Technology Products

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/targeting-penetration-in-new-markets-for-high-technology-products/ 

8          Management of Engineering Design of Prototypes Outsourcing

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/management-of-engineering-design-of-prototypes-outsourcing/

 

F.       DOING BUSINESS WITH LPBI  

 

  • In Funding Finding all BDs have access to LPBI’s IT Business Intelligence Database created by Aviva
  • In some cases Aviva contact directly the Sources for Introduction of a BD or for Prospecting directly
  • We wish to raise $10 Millions for each Start Up with whom we do business with
  • Our Finder Fee Agreement is for 10%, 7% is for the BD and 3% is for Aviva, she refers BDs to her contacts and functions as Counsel-at-large on concepts and markets via accessing LPBI’s IT Business Intelligence Database created by Aviva
  • All Team members and all Clients will be notifies of ALL new business opportunities and invited to participate
  1. All Team members CV and all Clients Profile MUST be on our System – LIVE 24×7 — we operate in the Cloud of WordPress.com
  2. All Team members and all Clients — for being connected and up-to-date MUST perform the following:
  • FOLLOW by e-mail the Scientific Journal

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com 

  • BEFRIEND the venture on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/LeadersInPharmaceuticalBusinessIntelligence 

  • FOLLOW the venture on Twitter

http://twitter.com/pharma_BI 

  • JOIN LPBI LinkedIn Group

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4346921&trk=hb_side_g

 

 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

 

We are looking forward to a VERY prosperous 2015 — The Year of Biotech,

Pharma, BioMed

 

I thank all the Team memberes that led projects and contributed to all the milestones achieved in 2014.

 

Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

1-617-244-4024

University of California, Berkeley, PhD’83

avivalev-ari@alum.berkeley.edu

BioMed e-Books Series – Editor-in-Chief

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/biomed-e-books/

Founder & Director

Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com

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Cancer Research Pioneer, after 71 years of Immunology Lab Research, Herman Eisen, MD, MIT Professor Emeritus of Biology, dies at 96

Reporter: Avvia Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Article ID #162: Cancer Research Pioneer, after 71 years of Immunology Lab Research, Herman Eisen, MD, MIT Professor Emeritus of Biology, dies at 96. Published on 11/26/2014

WordCloud Image Produced by Adam Tubman

SOURCE

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/herman-eisen-obituary-1113 

 

Herman Eisen, professor emeritus of biology, dies at 96

Eisen was a pioneering immunologist and longstanding member of MIT’s cancer research community.

Kevin Leonardi | Koch Institute
November 13, 2014

Herman Eisen, a professor emeritus of biology and founding member of the MIT Center for Cancer Research, died Nov. 2 at age 96.

Over a 70-year career, Eisen forged a path as a pioneering immunologist whose research has significantly shaped the field. He joined the MIT faculty in 1973, having been recruited as a founding member of MIT’s Center for Cancer Research (now the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research).

Eisen retired from MIT in 1989, albeit only in the official sense: As a professor emeritus, he maintained an active laboratory and continued to research, publish, and advise students and postdocs until his passing. In all, Eisen spent 41 years at MIT, during which he taught, mentored, and collaborated with thousands of students, faculty members, and staff.

Early years

Born in 1918 in Brooklyn, N.Y., Eisen developed a keen interest in science at an early age, when a high-school chemistry class helped frame his perception of the world as a collection of atoms and molecules. Eisen began premedical studies at New York University in 1934, but halfway through his undergraduate career he needed to leave school — and his position as first baseman on NYU’s baseball team — after developing tuberculosis. Though Eisen’s TB kept him out of school for one year, the illness sparked a curiosity about the immune system that would endure for the rest of his life.

Eisen returned to NYU to complete his bachelor’s degree, and he then enrolled at the university’s medical school. He graduated with an MD in 1943 and then worked as an assistant in the pathology department at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons before going back to NYU for his residency.

Eisen had a strong interest in basic science research, particularly in trying to better understand the body’s immune system. Though career options for physician-scientists had historically been limited, the federal government began to increase its funding of biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) following World War II. Seizing these new opportunities, Eisen became one of the first recipients of an NIH fellowship, which supported his research on sulfonamide-induced antibodies at NYU. These investigations helped him and colleague Fred Karush to determine the number of antigen-binding sites on antibodies.

After his two-year NIH fellowship, Eisen worked briefly at the Sloan Kettering Institute before returning once again to NYU as a faculty member. Inspired by the work of his recently deceased role model, physician-scientist Karl Landsteiner, he studied immune reactions of the skin. In doing so, he clarified the basis for certain allergic responses and showed that only those chemicals capable of forming covalent bonds to skin proteins could cause a characteristic itchy rash.

In 1955, Washington University in St. Louis recruited Eisen to join the faculty of its School of Medicine. There, he served as dermatologist-in-chief for five years before moving to the Department of Microbiology to serve as chair. While at WUSTL, Eisen published groundbreaking research in which he described affinity maturation: the process by which activated B cells produce antibodies with an increasingly higher affinity for invading pathogens after infection. This process is fundamental to the development of potent immune responses.

“Our understanding of affinity maturation begins with Herman’s papers,” says Arup K. Chakraborty, director of MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Robert T. Haslam Professor in Chemical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, and Biological Engineering. “Understanding this evolutionary process is critical for vaccine design, and affinity maturation is also mimicked in countless academic laboratories and companies to design antibody-based therapies.” 

Joining the MIT cancer research community

In response to the signing of the National Cancer Act of 1971, MIT tasked Nobel Prize-winning biology professor Salvador Luria with establishing and leading a new MIT Center for Cancer Research. Wanting to include cancer immunology as a focus of this new center, Luria approached Eisen about joining as a founding faculty member. Eisen accepted the role, and arrived at MIT in 1973 as a professor in the Department of Biology.

Eisen brought his immunology expertise to MIT’s new cancer center to study how cancer cells evade the body’s natural immune response. Much of his work focused on studying myeloma tumors in mice and screening their associated proteins. He found that if he used myeloma proteins from one mouse to immunize other mice from the same strain, they were resistant when challenged with cancer cells.

Eisen and his laboratory went on to study how CD8 T cells develop into cytotoxic, or “killer,” T cells and long-lived memory T cells. Therapeutic vaccines that exploit CD8 responses have not yet been developed for human populations; existing immunotherapies rely on helper T cells and other immune cells, and they do not mount the same aggressive offense against targets. Eisen was working to understand and overcome the barriers to creating effective CD8 vaccines, and his research on the subject was of particular importance to the advancement of cancer immunology. As part of this research, Eisen collaborated closely with Koch Institute faculty members Jianzhu Chen and Richard Young, who is also a member of the Whitehead Institute.

“Herman’s lifelong pursuit of science, even to the very last day of his life, has been an inspiration to many of us,” says Chen, the Ivan R. Cottrell Professor of Immunology. “He was a great human being with a great attitude and a clear mind. He will be missed greatly.”

As a fixture of MIT’s cancer research community since its formal inception, Eisen could, in recent years, often be found in his second-floor Koch Institute office consulting with students and younger investigators.

“Herman was a true treasure: an inspiring colleague, a caring mentor, and a wonderful human being,” says Tyler Jacks, director of the Koch Institute and the David H. Koch Professor of Biology. “We all aspire to be Herman Eisen.”

Other colleagues remember Eisen not only as a groundbreaking immunologist, but also as a hardworking collaborator and a generous man of integrity. He continued to be an active scientist and had been working with Chakraborty on a paper until his passing.

“Herman was a giant in the field of immunology, with many seminal discoveries,” Chakraborty says. “He was also the kindest and most generous and moral person I have known. Until the end, he was working on scientific problems with junior colleagues and students who benefited from his wisdom. I am lucky to have worked with this great scientist and wonderful human being.”

“Herman was a wonderful colleague and a terrific person with the highest integrity — a true mensch,” adds Alan Grossman, the Praecis Professor of Biology and head of MIT’s biology department. “We will miss his wisdom, thoughtfulness, and vitality.”

Eisen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965, the National Academy of Sciences in 1969, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 1974. He received numerous other awards and honors throughout his career, including the Behring-Heidelberger Award from the American Association of Immunologists, an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, and the Lifetime Service Award from the American Association of Immunologists, of which he served as president from 1968 to 1969.

Eisen is survived by his wife Natalie; their children, Ellen, Jane, Jim, Tom, and Matthew; and 12 grandchildren.

 

SOURCE

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/herman-eisen-obituary-1113 

 

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Heroes in Medical Research: The Postdoctoral Fellow

Writer: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D

Thank your Postdoc

The National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) had its Fifth Annual Celebration Of National Postdoc Appreciation Week (NPAW) in September and I wanted to focus a posting on curating stories from postdoctoral fellows as well as private investigators (PIs) and mentors on the impacts that postdoctoral fellows had in research and to recognize the critical and tremendous contributions which postdocs make to science.

During our postdoctoral years, we develop deep friendships which last a lifetime, a close bonding to our kindred scientists different in nature than our bonding with our mentors.  Nothing can replace a great mentor but our fellow postdocs make a huge difference in our complete scientific training.

                                   It’s always the little things that stand out in our fondest memories

Unfortunately I have a plethora of fond, little memories; too many for this posting but just want to ad in a few things:

  • Thank you!    –  To all those postdocs who worked tirelessly to make a memorable PostDoc Day!
  • Thank you!  –  To all my postdoc colleagues who stayed late n the lab with me giving each other moral and scientific support
  • Thank you!  – All my postdoc friends who would give up their time to show me how to make and use a text box correctly in Word
  • Thank you!  =-  for your friendship and understanding in those rough times we had experienced

To enliven the discussion, I ask that postdocs, past, present, and future, as well as PI’s and postdoc mentors comment on their postdoc experience. I also would like PI’s to share the stories how their postdocs made an impact to their labs.

A few interesting links and articles from the web on the importance and struggles of postdocs are included below:

Keith Micoli, from New York University Langone Medical Center states in an Elsevier article on The Academic Executive Brief

Consequently, it’s very difficult to come up with accurate numbers. Current estimates on number of postdocs come between 40,000 and 90,000 — a range that is unacceptable. A solid bet is that there are 60,000 postdocs and that more than half, if not two thirds or higher, are international.

– from US research enterprise powered by international postdocs by Keith Micoli at NYU

Survey Methodology

Since Science started conducting annual surveys seven years ago, alternating between polling postdocs and postdoc advisors, the attributes that survey respondents select as being most important to a successful postdoc have not varied much.This year’s survey was launched on March 15, 2011, with e-mail invitations sent out to about 40,000 current and former postdoc advisors worldwide. Of the 798 completed surveys that were collected, 71 percent came from Europe (39 percent) and North America (32 percent). The remaining respondents were located in Asia/Australia/Pacific Rim (20 percent) or other areas of the world (9 percent). Most were males (72 percent) 40 years of age and older (76 percent) and worked in academic institutions (70 percent) and government organizations (13 percent). The primary area represented was the life sciences (57 percent).

However only a handful of institutions were featured.

An open letter to AAAS journal “Science”: Postdocs need to address the “The Future of Research”

https://thewinnower.com/papers/an-open-letter-to-aaas-journal-science-postdocs-need-to-address-the-the-future-of-research?jm.npa=

This letter, posted on the Winnower.com, was a response to Callier’s article “Ailing academia needs culture change”1 and discussed how postdoctoral fellows have to lead in effecting change if the US research enterprise is to flourish in the future. In addition, the authors have been organizing Boston area postdoctoral associations and are sponsoring a symposium to be held at Boston University October 2-3 2014, focusing on the challenges facing graduate students and postdoctoral fellows: the “Future of Research” symposium (futureofresearch.org, @FORsymp).

  1. V. Callier, N. L. Vanderford. “Ailing academia needs culture change.” Science, 2014: 345; 6199: 885. DOI: 10.1126/science.345.6199.885-b

On the surface, many acknowledge the importance of postdoctoral fellows to the US research effort,

HOWEVER, the QUESTION remains DO POSTDOCS FEEL APPRECIATED FOR THEIR EFFORTS?

Please read Jacquelyn Gil, Ph.D.’s GREAT blog post

Have you hugged your postdoc today?

in The Contemplative Mammoth about her surviving postdoctoral life.

For some postdoc humor go to

http://phdcomics.com/comics.php where Jorge Cham, Ph.D. has been satiring the Ph.D. life since he was a graduate student in the late 90’s.

and see if you could be a star in their movie about Ph.D.’s: The PhD Movie and the sequel.

Don’t Underestimate Your Postdoc

Dr. Thomas C. Sudhof, MD is an example of a postdoctoral fellow making great contributions to a lab. A summary of his work is seen below and obtained from the site thebestschools.org on the “50 Most Influential Scientists”.

http://www.thebestschools.org/features/50-influential-scientists-world-today/#S%C3%BCdhof

Thomas C. Südhof

Thomas C. Südhof is a biochemist and professor in the School of Medicine in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. He is best known for his work in the area of synaptic transmission, which is the process by which signaling chemicals known as neurotransmitters are released by one neuron and bind to and activate the receptors of another neuron.

Südhof won the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Randy Schekman and James Rothman.

Südhof, a native of Germany, obtained his MD from the University of Göttingen and conducted his postdoctoral training in the department of molecular genetics at the University of Texas’s Health Science Center. During his postdoctoral training, he worked on describing the role of the LDL receptor in cholesterol metabolism, for which Michael S. Brown and Joseph L. Goldstein were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1985.

 

Another example from the site includes Dr. Craig Mello (Craig C. Mello’s Home Page.) who, along with Dr., Andrew Fire discovered RNAi when both at Carnegie Institute. Both received a Nobel for their work.

So again would love to hear and curate personal stories highlighting how postdocs make a great contribution to US science.

More articles in this “Heroes in Medical Research” series and posts on Scientific Careers from this site include:

Heroes in Medical Research: Green Fluorescent Protein and the Rough Road in Science

Heroes in Medical Research: Developing Models for Cancer Research

Heroes in Medical Research: Dr. Carmine Paul Bianchi Pharmacologist, Leader, and Mentor

Heroes in Medical Research: Dr. Robert Ting, Ph.D. and Retrovirus in AIDS and Cancer

Heroes in Medical Research: Barnett Rosenberg and the Discovery of Cisplatin

Science Budget FY’14: Stakeholders’ Reactions on Selective Budget Drops and Priorities Shift

Careers for Researchers Beyond Academia

BEYOND THE “MALE MODEL”: AN ALTERNATIVE FEMALE MODEL OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

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National Academy of Sciences Awards: Call for is Nominations to be submitted Online

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

The National Academy of Sciences is now accepting nominations online at https://awards.nasonline.org/ for the following awards: 

  • Arctowski Medal (solar physics/solar terrestrial relationships)
  • Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal (marine or freshwater algae)
  • J. C. Hunsaker Award in Aeronautical Engineering
  • J. Lawrence Smith Medal (meteoritic bodies)
  • Mary Clark Thompson Medal (geology/paleontology)
  • NAS Award for Chemistry in Service to Society
  • NAS Award for Scientific Discovery (chemistry, biochemistry, or biophysics)
  • NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing (biochemistry)
  • NAS Award in Chemical Sciences
  • NAS Award in Molecular Biology (young investigator)
  • NAS Public Welfare Medal
  • Pradel Research Award (neuroscience)
  • Richard Lounsbery Award (biology/medicine)
  • Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology
  • Troland Research Awards (psychology, young investigator)
  • William O. Baker Award for Initiatives in Science (statistics and machine learning)
  • William and Katherine Estes Award (formerly the NAS Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War)
  • NAS membership is not required to nominate candidates or to be considered for an award. Self nominations are not accepted. Joint nominations are discouraged and will only be considered when nominees have collaborated closely – usually in the same laboratory – on the work to be recognized by the award.

Nominations will be accepted until 11:59 pm EDT, Wednesday, October 1, 2014.

Copyright © 2014 National Academy of Sciences, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:

National Academy of Sciences

500 5th Street NW – NAS Building

Washington, Dc 20001

 

 

Since 1886, the National Academy of Sciences has honored outstanding achievement in the physical, biological, and social sciences through its awards program.

For more information on awards presented by the National Academy of Sciences, please visit:http://www.nasonline.org/about-nas/awards/

 

Nomination Deadline: Nominations must be submitted by 11:59pm EDT on Wednesday, October 1, 2014.

 

Questions? Email awards@nas.edu

 

Award to be Presented in 2015  
Arctowski Medal Awarded to a researcher selected for outstanding contributions to the study of solar physics and solar terrestrial relationships. The recipient is awarded a medal, a $20,000 prize, and an additional $60,000 to support further research in solar physics and solar terrestrial relations at an institution of their choice.
Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal Awarded to recognize excellence in published research on marine or freshwater algae. The recipient is awarded a medal and a $50,000 prize.
J. C. Hunsaker Award Awarded for excellence in the field of aeronautical engineering. The recipient is awarded a $50,000 prize.
J. Lawrence Smith Medal Awarded to recognize recent, original, and meritorious investigations of meteoric bodies. The recipient is awarded a medal and a $50,000 prize.
Mary Clark Thompson Medal Awarded to honor important services to geology and paleontology. The recipient is awarded a medal and a $15,000 prize.
NAS Award for Chemistry in Service to Society Awarded for contributions to chemistry, either in fundamental science or its application, that clearly satisfy a societal need. The award comes with a $20,000 prize and is presented in alternate years to chemists working in industry and to those in academia, government, and nonprofit organizations. Scheduled for presentation in 2015 to honor a chemist working in industry.
NAS Award for Scientific Discovery Recognizes an accomplishment or discovery in basic research within the past five years. The fields of science for each presentation will rotate among chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, astronomy, physics, and materials science.The inaugural award presented in 2015 will be awarded for a recent discovery in chemistry, biochemistry, or biophysics. The recipient is awarded a $100,000 prize.
NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing Awarded to recognize authors whose reviews have synthesized extensive and difficult material, rendering a significant service to science and influencing the course of scientific thought. The 2015 award will be presented in the field of biochemistry. The recipient is awarded a $10,000 prize.
NAS Award in Chemical Sciences Awarded to honor innovative research in the chemical sciences that, in the broadest sense, contributes to a better understanding of the natural sciences to the benefit of humanity. The recipient is awarded a medal and a $15,000 prize.
NAS Award in Molecular Biology Awarded to recognize a recent notable discovery in molecular biology by a young scientist (defined as no older than 45) who is a citizen of the United States. The recipient is awarded a medal and a $25,000 prize.
National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal Presented by the Council of the Academy in recognition of distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare.
Pradel Research Award The Pradel Research Award is presented annually to recognize mid-career neuroscientists whose work is making major contributions to our understanding of the nervous system. The recipient is presented with a $50,000 research award to an institution of their choice to support neuroscience research.
Richard Lounsbery Award Recognizes extraordinary scientific achievement by a young American researcher (age 45 or younger) in biology and medicine. The recipient is awarded a medal, a $50,000 prize, and an additional $20,000 to cover expenses incurred in the pursuance of further research in France.
Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology Awarded in recognition of excellence in the field of microbiology. The recipient is awarded a $5,000 prize.
Troland Research Awards Two awards are presented to young investigators (age 40 or younger) to recognize unusual achievement and further empirical research in psychology regarding the relationships of consciousness and the physical world. Each recipient is presented with a $75,000 prize to support their research.
William and Katherine Estes Award Formerly known as the NAS Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. Recognizes basic research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that uses rigorous formal and empirical methods to advance our understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war. The recipient is awarded a $20,000 prize.
William O. Baker Award for Initiatives in Research Formerly the NAS Award for Initiatives in Research. Awarded to recognize innovative young scientists and to encourage research likely to lead toward new capabilities for human benefit. The award is to be given to a resident of the United States, preferably no older than 35 years of age. The 2015 award will be presented in the field of statistics and machine learning. The recipient is awarded a $15,000 prize.

SOURCE

https://awards.nasonline.org/

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Heroes in Medical Research: Green Fluorescent Protein and the Rough Road in Science

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Article ID #147: Heroes in Medical Research: Green Fluorescent Protein and the Rough Road in Science. Published on 7/27/2014

WordCloud Image Produced by Adam Tubman

In this series, “Heroes in Medical Research”, I like to discuss the people who made some important contributions to science and medicine which underlie the great transformative changes but don’t usually get the notoriety given to Nobel Laureates or who seem to fly under the radar of popular news. Their work may be the development of research tools which allowed a great discovery leading to a line of transformative research, a moment of serendipity leading to discovery of a cure, or just contributions to the development of a new field or the mentoring of a new generation of scientists and clinicians. One such discovery, which has probably been pivotal in many of our research, is the discovery of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), commonly used as an invaluable tool to monitor protein for cellular expression and localization studies. Although the development of research tools, whether imaging tools, vectors, animal models, cell lines, and such are not heralded, they always assist in the pivotal discoveries of our time. The following is a heartwarming story by Discover Magazine’s Yudhijit Bhattacharjee behind Dr. Douglas Prasher’s discovery of the green fluorescent protein, his successful efforts to sequence the gene and subsequent struggles in science and finally scientific recognition for his work. In addition the story describes Dr. Prather’s perseverance, a trait necessary for every scientist.

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/30-how-bad-luck-networking-cost-prasher-nobel

 

The following is a wonderful entry into Wikipedia about Dr. Prasher at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher

including a listing of his publications including the seminal Science and PNAS publications1,2.

 

prasher

 

 

(Photo: Dr. Prasher in the lab at UCSD. Photo credit UCSD and John Galstaldo)

 

 

 

In summary, Dr. Prather had been working at Wood’s Hole in Massachusetts trying to discover, isolate, then clone the protein which allowed a species of jellyfish living in the cold waters of the North Pacific, Aequorea victoria, to emit a green glow. Eventually he cloned the GFP gene, but gave up on work to express the gene in mammalian cells. Before leaving Wood’s Hole he gave the gene to Dr. Roger Tsien, who with Dr. Martin Chalfie and Osamu Shimomura showed the utility of GFP as an intracellular tracer to visualize, in real time, the expression and localization of GFP-tagged proteins (all three shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for this work). Dr. Tsien however realized the importance of Douglas’s cloning work as pivotal for their research, contacted Douglas (who now due to the bad economy was working at a Toyota dealership in Alabama) and invited him to the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Sweden as his guest. Although Dr. Prasher had “left academic science” he never really stopped his quest for a scientific career, using his spare time to review manuscripts.

Other researchers have invited their colleagues who made important contributions to the ultimate Nobel work. One such guest was one of my colleagues Dr. Leonard Cohen, who worked with Dr. Irwin Rose and Avram Hershko at the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia a cell-free system from clams to discover the mechanism how cyclin B is degraded during the exit from the cell cycle (from A. Hershko’s Nobel speech). Dr. Hershko had acknowledged a slew of colleagues and highlighted their contributions to the ultimate work. It shows how even small discoveries can contribute to the sphere of scientific knowledge and breakthrough.

Luckily, in the end, perseverance has paid off as Dr. Prasher is now using his talents in Roger Tsien‘s group at the University of California in San Diego.

References:

1. Chalfie, M., Tu, Y., Euskirchen, G., Ward, W.W., Prasher, D.C., Green fluorescent protein as a marker for gene expression. Science, 263(5148), 802-805 (1994).

 

2. Heim, R., Prasher, D.C., Tsien, R.Y., Wavelength mutations and posttranslational autoxidation of green fluorescent protein. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 91(26), 12501-12504 (1994).

More posts on this site on Heroes in Medical Research series include:

Heroes in Medical Research: Developing Models for Cancer Research

Heroes in Medical Research: Dr. Carmine Paul Bianchi Pharmacologist, Leader, and Mentor

Heroes in Medical Research: Dr. Robert Ting, Ph.D. and Retrovirus in AIDS and Cancer

Heroes in Medical Research: Barnett Rosenberg and the Discovery of Cisplatin

 

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Why did this occur? The matter of Individual Actions Undermining Trust, The Patent Dilemma and The Value of a Clinical Trials

Why did this occur? The matter of Individual Actions Undermining Trust, The Patent Dilemma and The Value of a Clinical Trials

Reporter and Curator: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

 

he large amount of funding tied to continued research and support of postdoctoral fellows leads one to ask how following the money can lead to discredited work in th elite scientific community.

Moreover, the pressure to publish in prestigious journals with high impact factors is a road to academic promotion.  In the last twenty years, it is unusual to find submissions for review with less than 6-8 authors, with the statement that all contributed to the work.  These factors can’t be discounted outright, but it is easy for work to fall through the cracks when a key investigator has over 200 publications and holds tenure in a great research environment.  But that is where we find ourselves today.

There is another issue that comes up, which is also related to the issue of carrying out research, and then protecting the work for commercialization.  It is more complicated in the sense that it is necessary to determine whether there is prior art, and then there is the possibility that after the cost of filing patent and a 6 year delay in obtaining protection, there is as great a cost in bringing the patent to finasl production.

I.  Individual actions undermining trust.

II. The patent dilemma.

III. The value of a clinical trial.

IV. The value contributions of RAP physicians
(radiologists, anesthesiologists, and pathologists – the last for discussion)
Those who maintain and inform the integrity of medical and surgical decisions

 

I. Top heart lab comes under fire

Kelly Servick

Science 18 July 2014: Vol. 345 no. 6194 p. 254 DOI: 10.1126/science.345.6194.25

 

In the study of cardiac regeneration, Piero Anversa is among the heavy hitters. His research into the heart’s repair mechanisms helped kick-start the field of cardiac cell therapy (see main story). After more than 4 decades of research and 350 papers, he heads a lab at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston that has more than $6 million in active grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is also an outspoken voice in a field full of disagreement.

So when an ongoing BWH investigation of the lab came to light earlier this year, Anversa’s colleagues were transfixed. “Reactions in the field run the gamut from disbelief to vindication,” says Mark Sussman, a cardiovascular researcher at San Diego State University in California who has collaborated with Anversa. By Sussman’s account, Anversa’s reputation for “pushing the envelope” and “challenging existing dogma” has generated some criticism. Others, however, say that the disputes run deeper—to doubts about a cell therapy his lab has developed and about the group’s scientific integrity. Anversa told Science he was unable to comment during the investigation.

“People are talking about this all the time—at every scientific meeting I go to,” says Charles Murry, a cardiovascular pathologist at the University of Washington, Seattle. “It’s of grave concern to people in the field, but it’s been frustrating,” because no information is available about BWH’s investigation. BWH would not comment for this article, other than to say that it addresses concerns about its researchers confidentially.

In April, however, the journal Circulation agreed to Harvard’s request to retract a 2012 paper on which Anversa is a corresponding author, citing “compromised” data. The Lancet also issued an “Expression of Concern” about a 2011 paper reporting results from a clinical trial, known as SCIPIO, on which Anversa collaborated. According to a notice from the journal, two supplemental figures are at issue.

For some, Anversa’s status has earned him the benefit of the doubt. “Obviously, this is very disconcerting,” says Timothy Kamp, a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, but “I would be surprised if it was an implication of a whole career of research.”

Throughout that career, Anversa has argued that the heart is a prolific, lifelong factory for new muscle cells. Most now accept the view that the adult heart can regenerate muscle, but many have sparred with Anversa over his high estimates for the rate of this turnover, which he maintained in the retracted Circulation paper.

Anversa’s group also pioneered a method of separating cells with potential regenerative abilities from other cardiac tissue based on the presence of a protein called c-kit. After publishing evidence that these cardiac c-kit+cells spur new muscle growth in rodent hearts, the group collaborated in the SCIPIO trial to inject them into patients with heart failure. In The Lancet, the scientists reported that the therapy was safe and showed modest ability to strengthen the heart—evidence that many found intriguing and provocative. Roberto Bolli, the cardiologist whose group at the University of Louisville in Kentucky ran the SCIPIO trial, plans to test c-kit+ cells in further clinical trials as part of the NIH-funded Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network.

But others have been unable to reproduce the dramatic effects Anversa saw in animals, and some have questioned whether these cells really have stem cell–like properties. In May, a group led by Jeffery Molkentin, a molecular biologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, published a paper in Nature tracing the genetic lineage of c-kit+ cells that reside in the heart. He concluded that although they did make new muscle cells, the number is “astonishingly low” and likely not enough to contribute to the repair of damaged hearts. Still, Molkentin says that he “believe[s] in their therapeutic potential” and that he and Anversa have discussed collaborating.

Now, an anonymous blogger claims that problems in the Anversa lab go beyond controversial findings. In a letter published on the blog Retraction Watch on 30 May, a former research fellow in the Anversa lab described a lab culture focused on protecting the c-kit+ cell hypothesis: “[A]ll data that did not point to the ‘truth’ of the hypothesis were considered wrong,” the person wrote. But another former lab member offers a different perspective. “I had a great experience,” says Federica Limana, a cardiovascular disease researcher at IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana in Rome who spent 2 years of her Ph.D. work with the group in 1999 and 2000, as it was beginning to investigate c-kit+ cells. “In that period, there was no such pressure” to produce any particular result, she says.

Accusations about the lab’s integrity, combined with continued silence from BWH, are deeply troubling for scientists who have staked their research on theories that Anversa helped pioneer. Some have criticized BWH for requesting retractions in the midst of an investigation. “Scientific reputations and careers hang in the balance,” Sussman says, “so everyone should wait until all facts are clearly and fully disclosed.”

 

II.  Trolling Along: Recent Commotion About Patent Trolls

July 17, 2014

PriceWaterhouseCoopers recently released a study about 2014 Patent Litigation. PwC’s ultimate conclusion was that case volume increased vastly and damages continue a general decline, but what’s making headlines everywhere is that “patent trolls” now account for 67% of all new patent lawsuits (see, e.g., Washington Post and Fast Company).

Surprisingly, looking at PwC’s study, the word “troll” is not to be found. So, with regard to patent trolls, what does this study really mean for companies, patent owners and casual onlookers?

First of all, who are these trolls?

“Patent Troll” is a label applied to patent owners who do not make or manufacture a product, or offer a service. Patent trolls live (and die) by suing others for allegedly practicing an invention that is claimed by their patents.

The politically correct term is Non-practicing Entity (NPE). PwC solely uses the term NPE, which it defines as an entity that does not have the capability to design, manufacture, or distribute products with features protected by the patent.

So, what’s so bad about them?

The common impression of an NPEs is a business venture looking to collect and monetize assets (i.e., patents). In the most basic strategy, an NPE typically buys patents with broad claims that cover a wide variety of technologies and markets, and then sues a large group of alleged patent infringers in the hope to collect a licensing royalty or a settlement. NPEs typically don’t want to spend money on a trial unless they have to, and one tactic uses settlements with smaller businesses to build a “war chest” for potential suits with larger companies.

NPEs initiating a lawsuit can be viewed positively, such as a just defense of the lowly inventor who sold his patent to someone (with deeper pockets) who could fund the litigation to protect the inventor’s hard work against a mega-conglomerate who ripped off his idea.

Or NPE litigation can be seen negatively, such as an attorney’s demand letter on behalf of an anonymous shell corporation to shake down dozens of five-figure settlements from all the local small businesses that have ever used a fax machine.

NPEs can waste a company’s valuable time and resources with lawsuits, yet also bring value to their patent portfolios by energizing a patent sales and licensing market. There are unscrupulous NPEs, but it’s hardly the black and white situation that some media outlets are depicting.

What did PwC say about trolls?

Well, the PwC study looked at the success rates and awards of patent litigation decisions. One conclusion is that damages awards for NPEs averaged more than triple those for practicing entities over the last four years. We’ll come back to this statistic.

Another key observation is that NPEs have been successful 25% of the time overall, versus 35% for practicing entities. This makes sense because of the burden of proof the NPEs carry as a plaintiff at trial and the relative lack of success for NPEs at summary judgment. However, PwC’s report states that both types of entities win about two-thirds of their trials.

But what about this “67% of all patent trials are initiated by trolls” discussion?

The 67% number comes from the RPX Corporation’s litigation report (produced January 2014) that quantified the percentage of NPE cases filed in 2013 as 67%, compared to 64% in 2012, 47% in 2011, 30% in 2010 and 28% in 2009.

PwC refers to the RPX statistics to accentuate that this new study indicates that only 20% ofdecisions in 2013 involved NPE-filed cases, so the general conclusion would be that NPE cases tend to settle or be dismissed prior to a court’s decision. Admittedly, this is indicative of the prevalent “spray and pray” strategy where NPEs prefer to collect many settlement checks from several “targets” and avoid the courtroom.

In this study, who else is an NPE?

If someone were looking to dramatize the role of “trolls,” the name can be thrown around liberally (and hurtfully) to anyone who owns and asserts a patent without offering a product or a service. For instance, colleges and universities fall under the NPE umbrella as their research and development often ends with a series of published papers rather than a marketable product on an assembly line.

In fact, PwC distinguishes universities and non-profits from companies and individuals within their NPE analysis, with only about 5% of the NPE cases from 1995 to 2013 being attributed to universities and non-profits. Almost 50% of the NPE cases are attributed to an “individual,” who could be the listed inventor for the patent or a third-party assignee.

The word “troll” is obviously a derogatory term used to connote greed and hiding (under a bridge), but the term has adopted a newer, meme-like status as trolls are currently depicted as lacking any contribution to society and merely living off of others’ misfortunes and fears. [Three Billy Goats Gruff]. This is not always the truth with NPEs (e.g., universities).

No one wants to be called a troll—especially in front of a jury—so we’ve even recently seen courts bar defendants from referring to NPEs as such colorful terms as a “corporate shell,” “bounty hunter,” “privateer,” or someone “playing the lawsuit lottery.” [Judge Koh Bans Use Of Term ” Patent Troll” In Apple Jury Trial]

Regardless of the portrayal of an NPE, most people in the patent world distinguish the “trolls” by the strength of the patent, merits of the alleged infringement and their behavior upon notification. Often these are expressed as “frivolity” of the case and “gamesmanship” of the attorneys. Courts are able to punish plaintiffs who bring frivolous claims against a party and state bar associations are tasked with monitoring the ethics of attorneys. The USPTO is tasked with working to strengthen the quality of patents.

What’s the take-away from this study regarding NPEs?

The study focuses on patent litigation that produced a decision, therefore the most important and relevant conclusion is that, over the last four years, average damages awards for NPEs are more than triple the damages for practicing entities. Everything else in these articles, such as the initiation of litigation by NPEs, settlement percentages, and the general behavior of patent trolls is pure inference beyond the scope of the study.

This may sound sympathetic to trolls, but keep in mind that the study highlights that NPEs have more than triple the damages on average compared to practicing entities and it is meant to shock the reader a bit. One explanation for this is that NPEs are in the best position to choose the patents they want to assert and choose the targets they wish to sue—especially when the NPE is willing to ride that patent all the way to the end of a long, expensive trial. Sometimes settling is not an option. Chart 2b indicates that the disparity in the damages awarded to NPEs relative to practicing entities has always been big (since 2000), but perhaps going from two-fold from 2000 – 2009 to three times as much in the past 4 years indicates that NPEs are improving at finding patents and/or picking battles to take all the way to a court decision. More than anything, this seems to reflect the growth in the concept of patents as a business asset.

The PwC report is chock full of interesting patterns and trends of litigation results, so it’s a shame that the 67% number makes the headlines—far more interesting are the charts comparing success rates by 4-year periods (Chart 6b) or success rates for NPEs and practicing entities in front of a jury verusin front of a bench (Chart 6c), as well as other tables that reveal statistics for specific districts of the federal courts. Even the stats that look at the success rates of each type of NPE are telling because the reader sees that universities and non-profits have a higher success rate than non-practicing companies or individuals.

What do we do about the trolls?

The White House has recently called for Congress to do something about the trolls as horror stories of scams and shake-downs are shared. A bill was gaining momentum in the Senate, when Senator Leahy took it off the agenda in early July. That bill had miraculously passed 325-91 in the House and President Obama was willing to sign it if the Senate were to pass it. The bill was opposed by trial attorneys, universities, and bio-pharmaceutical businesses who felt as though the law would severely inhibit everyone’s access to the courts in order to hinder just the trolls. Regardless, most people think that the sitting Congressmen merely wanted a “win” prior to the mid-term elections and that patent reform is unlikely to reappear until next term.

In the meantime, the Supreme Court has recently reiterated rules concerning attorney fee-shifting on frivolous patent cases, as well as clarifying the validity of software patents. Time will tell if these changes have any effects on the damages awards that PwC’s study examined or even if they cause a chilling of the number of patent lawsuit filings.

Furthermore, new ways to challenge the validity of asserted patents have been initiated via the America Invents Act. For example, the Inter Partes Review (IPR) has yielded frightening preliminary statistics as to slowing, if not killing, patents that have been asserted in a suit. While these administrative trials are not cheap, many view these new tools at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board as anti-troll measures. It will be interesting to watch how the USPTO implements these procedures in the near future, especially while former Google counsel, Acting Director Michelle K. Lee, oversees the office.

In the private sector, Silicon Valley has recently seen a handful of tech companies come together as the License on Transfer Network, a group hoping to disarm the “Patent Assertion Entities.” Joining the LOT Network comes via an agreement that creates a license for use of a patent by anyone in the LOT network once that patent is sold. The thought is that the NPEs who consider purchasing patents from companies in the LOT Network will have fewer companies to sue since the license to the other active LOT participants will have triggered upon the transfer and, thus, the NPE will not be as inclined to “troll.” For instance, if a member-company such as Google were to sell a patent to a non-member company and an NPE bought that patent, the NPE would not be able to sue any members of the LOT Network with that patent.

Other notes

NPEs are only as evil as the people who run them—that being said, there are plenty of horror stories of small businesses receiving phantom demand letters that threaten a patent infringement suit without identifying themselves or the patent. This is an out-and-out scam and a plague on society that results in wasted time and resource, and inevitably higher prices on the consumer end.

It is a sin and a shame that patent rights can be misused in scams and shake-downs of businesses around us, but there is a reason that U.S. courts are so often used to defend patent rights. The PwC study, at minimum, reflects the high stakes of the patent market and perhaps the fragility. Nevertheless, merely monitoring the courts may not keep the trolls at bay.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

*This is provided for informational purposes only, and does not constitute legal or financial advice. The information expressed is subject to change at any time and should be checked for completeness, accuracy and current applicability. For advice, consult a suitably licensed attorney or patent agent.

 

III. Large-scale analysis finds majority of clinical trials don’t provide meaningful evidence

Ineffective TreatmentsMedical Ethics • Tags: Center for Drug Evaluation and ResearchClinical trialCTTIDuke University HospitalFDAFood and Drug AdministrationNational Institutes of HealthUnited States National Library of Medicine

04 May 2012

DURHAM, N.C.— The largest comprehensive analysis of ClinicalTrials.gov finds that clinical trials are falling short of producing high-quality evidence needed to guide medical decision-making. The analysis, published today in JAMA, found the majority of clinical trials is small, and there are significant differences among methodical approaches, including randomizing, blinding and the use of data monitoring committees.

“Our analysis raises questions about the best methods for generating evidence, as well as the capacity of the clinical trials enterprise to supply sufficient amounts of high quality evidence to ensure confidence in guideline recommendations,” said Robert Califf, M.D., first author of the paper, vice chancellor for clinical research at Duke University Medical Center, and director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute.

The analysis was conducted by the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), a public private partnership founded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Duke. It extends the usability of the data in ClinicalTrials.gov for research by placing the data through September 27, 2010 into a database structured to facilitate aggregate analysis. This publically accessible database facilitates the assessment of the clinical trials enterprise in a more comprehensive manner than ever before and enables the identification of trends by study type.

 

The National Library of Medicine (NLM), a part of the National Institutes of Health, developed and manages ClinicalTrials.gov. This site maintains a registry of past, current, and planned clinical research studies.

“Since 2007, the Food and Drug Administration Amendment Act has required registration of clinical trials, and the expanded scope and rigor of trial registration policies internationally is producing more complete data from around the world,” stated Deborah Zarin, MD, director, ClinicalTrials.gov, and assistant director for clinical research projects, NLM. “We have amassed over 120,000 registered clinical trials. This rich repository of data has a lot to say about the national and international research portfolio.”

This CTTI project was a collaborative effort by informaticians, statisticians and project managers from NLM, FDA and Duke. CTTI comprises more than 60 member organizations with the goal of identifying practices that will improve the quality and efficiency of clinical trials.

“Since the ClinicalTrials.gov registry contains studies sponsored by multiple entities, including government, industry, foundations and universities, CTTI leaders recognized that it might be a valuable source for benchmarking the state of the clinical trials enterprise,” stated Judith Kramer, MD, executive director of CTTI.

The project goal was to produce an easily accessible database incorporating advances in informatics to permit a detailed characterization of the body of clinical research and facilitate analysis of groups of studies by therapeutic areas, by type of sponsor, by number of participants and by many other parameters.

“Analysis of the entire portfolio will enable the many entities in the clinical trials enterprise to examine their practices in comparison with others,” says Califf. “For example, 96% of clinical trials have ≤1000 participants, and 62% have ≤ 100. While there are many excellent small clinical trials, these studies will not be able to inform patients, doctors and consumers about the choices they must make to prevent and treat disease.”

The analysis showed heterogeneity in median trial size, with cardiovascular trials tending to be twice as large as those in oncology and trials in mental health falling in the middle. It also showed major differences in the use of randomization, blinding, and data monitoring committees, critical issues often used to judge the quality of evidence for medical decisions in clinical practice guidelines and systematic overviews.

“These results reinforce the importance of exploration, analysis and inspection of our clinical trials enterprise,” said Rachel Behrman Sherman, MD, associate director for the Office of Medical Policy at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Generation of this evidence will contribute to our understanding of the number of studies in different phases of research, the therapeutic areas, and ways we can improve data collection about clinical trials, eventually improving the quality of clinical trials.”

Related articles

 

IV.  Lawmakers urge CMS to extend MU hardship exemption for pathologists

 

Eighty-nine members of Congress have asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to give pathologists a break and extend the hardship exemption they currently enjoy for all of Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use program.In the letter–dated July 10 and addressed to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner–the lawmakers point out that CMS had recognized in its 2012 final rule implementing Stage 2 of the program that it was difficult for pathologists to meet the Meaningful Use requirements and granted a one year exception for 2015, the first year that penalties will be imposed. They now are asking that the exception be expanded to include the full five-year maximum allowed under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“Pathologists have limited direct contact with patients and do not operate in EHRs,” the letter states. “Instead, pathologists use sophisticated computerized laboratory information systems (LISs) to support the work of analyzing patient specimens and generating test results. These LISs exchange laboratory and pathology data with EHRs.”

Interestingly, the lawmakers’ exemption request is only on behalf of pathologists, even though CMS had granted the one-year hardship exception to pathologists, radiologists and anesthesiologists.

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), one of the members spearheading the letter, had also introduced a bill (H.R. 1309) in March 2013 that would exclude pathologists from the incentives and penalties of the Meaningful Use program. The bill, which has 31 cosponsors, is currently sitting in committee. That bill also does not include relief for radiologists or anesthesiologists.

CMS has provided some flexibility about the hardship exceptions in the past, most recently by allowing providers to apply for one due to EHR vendor delays in upgrading to Stage 2 of the program.

However, CMS also noted in the 2012 rule granting the one-year exception that it was granting the exception in large part because of the then-current lack of health information exchange and that “physicians in these three specialties should not expect that this exception will continue indefinitely, nor should they expect that we will grant the exception for the full 5-year period permitted by statute.”

To learn more:
– read the letter (.pdf)

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Scientific Curation Fostering Expert Networks and Open Innovation: Lessons from Clive Thompson

Life-cycle of Science 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Curators and Writer: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D. with input from Curators Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP, Dr. Justin D. Pearlman, MD, PhD, FACC and Dr. Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

(this discussion is in a three part series including:

Using Scientific Content Curation as a Method for Validation and Biocuration

Using Scientific Content Curation as a Method for Open Innovation)

 

Every month I get my Wired Magazine (yes in hard print, I still like to turn pages manually plus I don’t mind if I get grease or wing sauce on my magazine rather than on my e-reader) but I always love reading articles written by Clive Thompson. He has a certain flair for understanding the techno world we live in and the human/technology interaction, writing about interesting ways in which we almost inadvertently integrate new technologies into our day-to-day living, generating new entrepreneurship, new value.   He also writes extensively about tech and entrepreneurship.

October 2013 Wired article by Clive Thompson, entitled “How Successful Networks Nurture Good Ideas: Thinking Out Loud”, describes how the voluminous writings, postings, tweets, and sharing on social media is fostering connections between people and ideas which, previously, had not existed. The article was generated from Clive Thompson’s book Smarter Than you Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better.Tom Peters also commented about the article in his blog (see here).

Clive gives a wonderful example of Ory Okolloh, a young Kenyan-born law student who, after becoming frustrated with the lack of coverage of problems back home, started a blog about Kenyan politics. Her blog not only got interest from movie producers who were documenting female bloggers but also gained the interest of fellow Kenyans who, during the upheaval after the 2007 Kenyan elections, helped Ory to develop a Google map for reporting of violence (http://www.ushahidi.com/, which eventually became a global organization using open-source technology to affect crises-management. There are a multitude of examples how networks and the conversations within these circles are fostering new ideas. As Clive states in the article:

 

Our ideas are PRODUCTS OF OUR ENVIRONMENT.

They are influenced by the conversations around us.

However the article got me thinking of how Science 2.0 and the internet is changing how scientists contribute, share, and make connections to produce new and transformative ideas.

But HOW MUCH Knowledge is OUT THERE?

 

Clive’s article listed some amazing facts about the mountains of posts, tweets, words etc. out on the internet EVERY DAY, all of which exemplifies the problem:

  • 154.6 billion EMAILS per DAY
  • 400 million TWEETS per DAY
  • 1 million BLOG POSTS (including this one) per DAY
  • 2 million COMMENTS on WordPress per DAY
  • 16 million WORDS on Facebook per DAY
  • TOTAL 52 TRILLION WORDS per DAY

As he estimates this would be 520 million books per DAY (book with average 100,000 words).

A LOT of INFO. But as he suggests it is not the volume but how we create and share this information which is critical as the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon noted “Ninety percent of everything is crap” AKA Sturgeon’s Law.

 

Internet live stats show how congested the internet is each day (http://www.internetlivestats.com/). Needless to say Clive’s numbers are a bit off. As of the writing of this article:

 

  • 2.9 billion internet users
  • 981 million websites (only 25,000 hacked today)
  • 128 billion emails
  • 385 million Tweets
  • > 2.7 million BLOG posts today (including this one)

 

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of the Scientific Internet (The Wild West?)

 

So how many science blogs are out there? Well back in 2008 “grrlscientistasked this question and turned up a total of 19,881 blogs however most were “pseudoscience” blogs, not written by Ph.D or MD level scientists. A deeper search on Technorati using the search term “scientist PhD” turned up about 2,000 written by trained scientists.

So granted, there is a lot of

goodbadugly

 

              ….. when it comes to scientific information on the internet!

 

 

 

 

 

I had recently re-posted, on this site, a great example of how bad science and medicine can get propagated throughout the internet:

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/06/17/the-gonzalez-protocol-worse-than-useless-for-pancreatic-cancer/

 

and in a Nature Report:Stem cells: Taking a stand against pseudoscience

http://www.nature.com/news/stem-cells-taking-a-stand-against-pseudoscience-1.15408

Drs.Elena Cattaneo and Gilberto Corbellini document their long, hard fight against false and invalidated medical claims made by some “clinicians” about the utility and medical benefits of certain stem-cell therapies, sacrificing their time to debunk medical pseudoscience.

 

Using Curation and Science 2.0 to build Trusted, Expert Networks of Scientists and Clinicians

 

Establishing networks of trusted colleagues has been a cornerstone of the scientific discourse for centuries. For example, in the mid-1640s, the Royal Society began as:

 

“a meeting of natural philosophers to discuss promoting knowledge of the

natural world through observation and experiment”, i.e. science.

The Society met weekly to witness experiments and discuss what we

would now call scientific topics. The first Curator of Experiments

was Robert Hooke.”

 

from The History of the Royal Society

 

Royal Society CoatofArms

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.

(photo credit: Royal Society)

(Although one wonders why they met “in-cognito”)

Indeed as discussed in “Science 2.0/Brainstorming” by the originators of OpenWetWare, an open-source science-notebook software designed to foster open-innovation, the new search and aggregation tools are making it easier to find, contribute, and share information to interested individuals. This paradigm is the basis for the shift from Science 1.0 to Science 2.0. Science 2.0 is attempting to remedy current drawbacks which are hindering rapid and open scientific collaboration and discourse including:

  • Slow time frame of current publishing methods: reviews can take years to fashion leading to outdated material
  • Level of information dissemination is currently one dimensional: peer-review, highly polished work, conferences
  • Current publishing does not encourage open feedback and review
  • Published articles edited for print do not take advantage of new web-based features including tagging, search-engine features, interactive multimedia, no hyperlinks
  • Published data and methodology incomplete
  • Published data not available in formats which can be readably accessible across platforms: gene lists are now mandated to be supplied as files however other data does not have to be supplied in file format

(put in here a brief blurb of summary of problems and why curation could help)

 

Curation in the Sciences: View from Scientific Content Curators Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP, Dr. Justin D. Pearlman, MD, PhD, FACC and Dr. Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Curation is an active filtering of the web’s  and peer reviewed literature found by such means – immense amount of relevant and irrelevant content. As a result content may be disruptive. However, in doing good curation, one does more than simply assign value by presentation of creative work in any category. Great curators comment and share experience across content, authors and themes. Great curators may see patterns others don’t, or may challenge or debate complex and apparently conflicting points of view.  Answers to specifically focused questions comes from the hard work of many in laboratory settings creatively establishing answers to definitive questions, each a part of the larger knowledge-base of reference. There are those rare “Einstein’s” who imagine a whole universe, unlike the three blind men of the Sufi tale.  One held the tail, the other the trunk, the other the ear, and they all said this is an elephant!
In my reading, I learn that the optimal ratio of curation to creation may be as high as 90% curation to 10% creation. Creating content is expensive. Curation, by comparison, is much less expensive.

– Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

Curation is Uniquely Distinguished by the Historical Exploratory Ties that Bind –Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

The explosion of information by numerous media, hardcopy and electronic, written and video, has created difficulties tracking topics and tying together relevant but separated discoveries, ideas, and potential applications. Some methods to help assimilate diverse sources of knowledge include a content expert preparing a textbook summary, a panel of experts leading a discussion or think tank, and conventions moderating presentations by researchers. Each of those methods has value and an audience, but they also have limitations, particularly with respect to timeliness and pushing the edge. In the electronic data age, there is a need for further innovation, to make synthesis, stimulating associations, synergy and contrasts available to audiences in a more timely and less formal manner. Hence the birth of curation. Key components of curation include expert identification of data, ideas and innovations of interest, expert interpretation of the original research results, integration with context, digesting, highlighting, correlating and presenting in novel light.

Justin D Pearlman, MD, PhD, FACC from The Voice of Content Consultant on The  Methodology of Curation in Cardiovascular Original Research: Cases in Methodology Design for Content Co-Curation The Art of Scientific & Medical Curation

 

In Power of Analogy: Curation in Music, Music Critique as a Curation and Curation of Medical Research Findings – A Comparison, Drs. Larry Bernstein and Aviva Lev-Ari likens the medical and scientific curation process to curation of musical works into a thematic program:

 

Work of Original Music Curation and Performance:

 

Music Review and Critique as a Curation

Work of Original Expression what is the methodology of Curation in the context of Medical Research Findings Exposition of Synthesis and Interpretation of the significance of the results to Clinical Care

… leading to new, curated, and collaborative works by networks of experts to generate (in this case) ebooks on most significant trends and interpretations of scientific knowledge as relates to medical practice.

 

In Summary: How Scientific Content Curation Can Help

 

Given the aforementioned problems of:

        I.            the complex and rapid deluge of scientific information

      II.            the need for a collaborative, open environment to produce transformative innovation

    III.            need for alternative ways to disseminate scientific findings

CURATION MAY OFFER SOLUTIONS

        I.            Curation exists beyond the review: curation decreases time for assessment of current trends adding multiple insights, analyses WITH an underlying METHODOLOGY (discussed below) while NOT acting as mere reiteration, regurgitation

 

      II.            Curation providing insights from WHOLE scientific community on multiple WEB 2.0 platforms

 

    III.            Curation makes use of new computational and Web-based tools to provide interoperability of data, reporting of findings (shown in Examples below)

 

Therefore a discussion is given on methodologies, definitions of best practices, and tools developed to assist the content curation community in this endeavor.

Methodology in Scientific Content Curation as Envisioned by Aviva lev-Ari, PhD, RN

 

At Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence, site owner and chief editor Aviva lev-Ari, PhD, RN has been developing a strategy “for the facilitation of Global access to Biomedical knowledge rather than the access to sheer search results on Scientific subject matters in the Life Sciences and Medicine”. According to Aviva, “for the methodology to attain this complex goal it is to be dealing with popularization of ORIGINAL Scientific Research via Content Curation of Scientific Research Results by Experts, Authors, Writers using the critical thinking process of expert interpretation of the original research results.” The following post:

Cardiovascular Original Research: Cases in Methodology Design for Content Curation and Co-Curation

 

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2013/07/29/cardiovascular-original-research-cases-in-methodology-design-for-content-curation-and-co-curation/

demonstrate two examples how content co-curation attempts to achieve this aim and develop networks of scientist and clinician curators to aid in the active discussion of scientific and medical findings, and use scientific content curation as a means for critique offering a “new architecture for knowledge”. Indeed, popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or even scientific search engines such as NCBI’s PubMed and the OVID search engine rely on keywords and Boolean algorithms …

which has created a need for more context-driven scientific search and discourse.

In Science and Curation: the New Practice of Web 2.0, Célya Gruson-Daniel (@HackYourPhd) states:

To address this need, human intermediaries, empowered by the participatory wave of web 2.0, naturally started narrowing down the information and providing an angle of analysis and some context. They are bloggers, regular Internet users or community managers – a new type of profession dedicated to the web 2.0. A new use of the web has emerged, through which the information, once produced, is collectively spread and filtered by Internet users who create hierarchies of information.

.. where Célya considers curation an essential practice to manage open science and this new style of research.

As mentioned above in her article, Dr. Lev-Ari represents two examples of how content curation expanded thought, discussion, and eventually new ideas.

  1. Curator edifies content through analytic process = NEW form of writing and organizations leading to new interconnections of ideas = NEW INSIGHTS

i)        Evidence: curation methodology leading to new insights for biomarkers

 

  1. Same as #1 but multiple players (experts) each bringing unique insights, perspectives, skills yielding new research = NEW LINE of CRITICAL THINKING

ii)      Evidence: co-curation methodology among cardiovascular experts leading to cardiovascular series ebooks

Life-cycle of Science 2

The Life Cycle of Science 2.0. Due to Web 2.0, new paradigms of scientific collaboration are rapidly emerging.  Originally, scientific discovery were performed by individual laboratories or “scientific silos” where the main method of communication was peer-reviewed publication, meeting presentation, and ultimately news outlets and multimedia. In this digital era, data was organized for literature search and biocurated databases. In an era of social media, Web 2.0, a group of scientifically and medically trained “curators” organize the piles of data of digitally generated data and fit data into an organizational structure which can be shared, communicated, and analyzed in a holistic approach, launching new ideas due to changes in organization structure of data and data analytics.

 

The result, in this case, is a collaborative written work above the scope of the review. Currently review articles are written by experts in the field and summarize the state of a research are. However, using collaborative, trusted networks of experts, the result is a real-time synopsis and analysis of the field with the goal in mind to

INCREASE THE SCIENTIFIC CURRENCY.

For detailed description of methodology please see Cardiovascular Original Research: Cases in Methodology Design for Content Co-Curation The Art of Scientific & Medical Curation

 

In her paper, Curating e-Science Data, Maureen Pennock, from The British Library, emphasized the importance of using a diligent, validated, and reproducible, and cost-effective methodology for curation by e-science communities over the ‘Grid:

“The digital data deluge will have profound repercussions for the infrastructure of research and beyond. Data from a wide variety of new and existing sources will need to be annotated with metadata, then archived and curated so that both the data and the programmes used to transform the data can be reproduced for use in the future. The data represent a new foundation for new research, science, knowledge and discovery”

— JISC Senior Management Briefing Paper, The Data Deluge (2004)

 

As she states proper data and content curation is important for:

  • Post-analysis
  • Data and research result reuse for new research
  • Validation
  • Preservation of data in newer formats to prolong life-cycle of research results

However she laments the lack of

  • Funding for such efforts
  • Training
  • Organizational support
  • Monitoring
  • Established procedures

 

Tatiana Aders wrote a nice article based on an interview with Microsoft’s Robert Scoble, where he emphasized the need for curation in a world where “Twitter is the replacement of the Associated Press Wire Machine” and new technologic platforms are knocking out old platforms at a rapid pace. In addition he notes that curation is also a social art form where primary concerns are to understand an audience and a niche.

Indeed, part of the reason the need for curation is unmet, as writes Mark Carrigan, is the lack of appreciation by academics of the utility of tools such as Pinterest, Storify, and Pearl Trees to effectively communicate and build collaborative networks.

And teacher Nancy White, in her article Understanding Content Curation on her blog Innovations in Education, shows examples of how curation in an educational tool for students and teachers by demonstrating students need to CONTEXTUALIZE what the collect to add enhanced value, using higher mental processes such as:

  • Knowledge
  • Comprehension
  • Application
  • Analysis
  • Synthesis
  • Evaluation

curating-tableA GREAT table about the differences between Collecting and Curating by Nancy White at http://d20innovation.d20blogs.org/2012/07/07/understanding-content-curation/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

University of Massachusetts Medical School has aggregated some useful curation tools at http://esciencelibrary.umassmed.edu/data_curation

Although many tools are related to biocuration and building databases but the common idea is curating data with indexing, analyses, and contextual value to provide for an audience to generate NETWORKS OF NEW IDEAS.

See here for a curation of how networks fosters knowledge, by Erika Harrison on ScoopIt

(http://www.scoop.it/t/mobilizing-knowledge-through-complex-networks)

 

“Nowadays, any organization should employ network scientists/analysts who are able to map and analyze complex systems that are of importance to the organization (e.g. the organization itself, its activities, a country’s economic activities, transportation networks, research networks).”

Andrea Carafa insight from World Economic Forum New Champions 2012 “Power of Networks

 

Creating Content Curation Communities: Breaking Down the Silos!

 

An article by Dr. Dana Rotman “Facilitating Scientific Collaborations Through Content Curation Communities” highlights how scientific information resources, traditionally created and maintained by paid professionals, are being crowdsourced to professionals and nonprofessionals in which she termed “content curation communities”, consisting of professionals and nonprofessional volunteers who create, curate, and maintain the various scientific database tools we use such as Encyclopedia of Life, ChemSpider (for Slideshare see here), biowikipedia etc. Although very useful and openly available, these projects create their own challenges such as

  • information integration (various types of data and formats)
  • social integration (marginalized by scientific communities, no funding, no recognition)

The authors set forth some ways to overcome these challenges of the content curation community including:

  1. standardization in practices
  2. visualization to document contributions
  3. emphasizing role of information professionals in content curation communities
  4. maintaining quality control to increase respectability
  5. recognizing participation to professional communities
  6. proposing funding/national meeting – Data Intensive Collaboration in Science and Engineering Workshop

A few great presentations and papers from the 2012 DICOSE meeting are found below

Judith M. Brown, Robert Biddle, Stevenson Gossage, Jeff Wilson & Steven Greenspan. Collaboratively Analyzing Large Data Sets using Multitouch Surfaces. (PDF) NotesForBrown

 

Bill Howe, Cecilia Aragon, David Beck, Jeffrey P. Gardner, Ed Lazowska, Tanya McEwen. Supporting Data-Intensive Collaboration via Campus eScience Centers. (PDF) NotesForHowe

 

Kerk F. Kee & Larry D. Browning. Challenges of Scientist-Developers and Adopters of Existing Cyberinfrastructure Tools for Data-Intensive Collaboration, Computational Simulation, and Interdisciplinary Projects in Early e-Science in the U.S.. (PDF) NotesForKee

 

Ben Li. The mirages of big data. (PDF) NotesForLiReflectionsByBen

 

Betsy Rolland & Charlotte P. Lee. Post-Doctoral Researchers’ Use of Preexisting Data in Cancer Epidemiology Research. (PDF) NoteForRolland

 

Dana Rotman, Jennifer Preece, Derek Hansen & Kezia Procita. Facilitating scientific collaboration through content curation communities. (PDF) NotesForRotman

 

Nicholas M. Weber & Karen S. Baker. System Slack in Cyberinfrastructure Development: Mind the Gaps. (PDF) NotesForWeber

Indeed, the movement of Science 2.0 from Science 1.0 had originated because these “silos” had frustrated many scientists, resulting in changes in the area of publishing (Open Access) but also communication of protocols (online protocol sites and notebooks like OpenWetWare and BioProtocols Online) and data and material registries (CGAP and tumor banks). Some examples are given below.

Open Science Case Studies in Curation

1. Open Science Project from Digital Curation Center

This project looked at what motivates researchers to work in an open manner with regard to their data, results and protocols, and whether advantages are delivered by working in this way.

The case studies consider the benefits and barriers to using ‘open science’ methods, and were carried out between November 2009 and April 2010 and published in the report Open to All? Case studies of openness in research. The Appendices to the main report (pdf) include a literature review, a framework for characterizing openness, a list of examples, and the interview schedule and topics. Some of the case study participants kindly agreed to us publishing the transcripts. This zip archive contains transcripts of interviews with researchers in astronomy, bioinformatics, chemistry, and language technology.

 

see: Pennock, M. (2006). “Curating e-Science Data”. DCC Briefing Papers: Introduction to Curation. Edinburgh: Digital Curation Centre. Handle: 1842/3330. Available online: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/briefing-papers/introduction-curation– See more at: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/briefing-papers/introduction-curation/curating-e-science-data#sthash.RdkPNi9F.dpuf

 

2.      cBIO -cBio’s biological data curation group developed and operates using a methodology called CIMS, the Curation Information Management System. CIMS is a comprehensive curation and quality control process that efficiently extracts information from publications.

 

3. NIH Topic Maps – This website provides a database and web-based interface for searching and discovering the types of research awarded by the NIH. The database uses automated, computer generated categories from a statistical analysis known as topic modeling.

 

4. SciKnowMine (USC)- We propose to create a framework to support biocuration called SciKnowMine (after ‘Scientific Knowledge Mine’), cyberinfrastructure that supports biocuration through the automated mining of text, images, and other amenable media at the scale of the entire literature.

 

  1. OpenWetWareOpenWetWare is an effort to promote the sharing of information, know-how, and wisdom among researchers and groups who are working in biology & biological engineering. Learn more about us.   If you would like edit access, would be interested in helping out, or want your lab website hosted on OpenWetWare, pleasejoin us. OpenWetWare is managed by the BioBricks Foundation. They also have a wiki about Science 2.0.

6. LabTrove: a lightweight, web based, laboratory “blog” as a route towards a marked up record of work in a bioscience research laboratory. Authors in PLOS One article, from University of Southampton, report the development of an open, scientific lab notebook using a blogging strategy to share information.

7. OpenScience ProjectThe OpenScience project is dedicated to writing and releasing free and Open Source scientific software. We are a group of scientists, mathematicians and engineers who want to encourage a collaborative environment in which science can be pursued by anyone who is inspired to discover something new about the natural world.

8. Open Science Grid is a multi-disciplinary partnership to federate local, regional, community and national cyberinfrastructures to meet the needs of research and academic communities at all scales.

 

9. Some ongoing biomedical knowledge (curation) projects at ISI

IICurate
This project is concerned with developing a curation and documentation system for information integration in collaboration with the II Group at ISI as part of the BIRN.

BioScholar
It’s primary purpose is to provide software for experimental biomedical scientists that would permit a single scientific worker (at the level of a graduate student or postdoctoral worker) to design, construct and manage a shared knowledge repository for a research group derived on a local store of PDF files. This project is funded by NIGMS from 2008-2012 ( RO1-GM083871).

10. Tools useful for scientific content curation

 

Research Analytic and Curation Tools from University of Queensland

 

Thomson Reuters information curation services for pharma industry

 

Microblogs as a way to communicate information about HPV infection among clinicians and patients; use of Chinese microblog SinaWeibo as a communication tool

 

VIVO for scientific communities– In order to connect this information about research activities across institutions and make it available to others, taking into account smaller players in the research landscape and addressing their need for specific information (for example, by proving non-conventional research objects), the open source software VIVO that provides research information as linked open data (LOD) is used in many countries.  So-called VIVO harvesters collect research information that is freely available on the web, and convert the data collected in conformity with LOD standards. The VIVO ontology builds on prevalent LOD namespaces and, depending on the needs of the specialist community concerned, can be expanded.

 

 

11. Examples of scientific curation in different areas of Science/Pharma/Biotech/Education

 

From Science 2.0 to Pharma 3.0 Q&A with Hervé Basset

http://digimind.com/blog/experts/pharma-3-0/

Hervé Basset, specialist librarian in the pharmaceutical industry and owner of the blog “Science Intelligence“, to talk about the inspiration behind his recent book  entitled “From Science 2.0 to Pharma 3.0″, published by Chandos Publishing and available on Amazon and how health care companies need a social media strategy to communicate and convince the health-care consumer, not just the practicioner.

 

Thomson Reuters and NuMedii Launch Ground-Breaking Initiative to Identify Drugs for Repurposing. Companies leverage content, Big Data analytics and expertise to improve success of drug discovery

 

Content Curation as a Context for Teaching and Learning in Science

 

#OZeLIVE Feb2014

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty-ugUA4az0

Creative Commons license

 

DigCCur: A graduate level program initiated by University of North Carolina to instruct the future digital curators in science and other subjects

 

Syracuse University offering a program in eScience and digital curation

 

Curation Tips from TED talks and tech experts

Steven Rosenbaum from Curation Nation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpncJd1v1k4

 

Pawan Deshpande form Curata on how content curation communities evolve and what makes a good content curation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QENhIU9YZyA

 

How the Internet of Things is Promoting the Curation Effort

Update by Stephen J. Williams, PhD 3/01/19

Up till now, curation efforts like wikis (Wikipedia, Wikimedicine, Wormbase, GenBank, etc.) have been supported by a largely voluntary army of citizens, scientists, and data enthusiasts.  I am sure all have seen the requests for donations to help keep Wikipedia and its other related projects up and running.  One of the obscure sister projects of Wikipedia, Wikidata, wants to curate and represent all information in such a way in which both machines, computers, and humans can converse in.  About an army of 4 million have Wiki entries and maintain these databases.

Enter the Age of the Personal Digital Assistants (Hellooo Alexa!)

In a March 2019 WIRED article “Encyclopedia Automata: Where Alexa Gets Its Information”  senior WIRED writer Tom Simonite reports on the need for new types of data structure as well as how curated databases are so important for the new fields of AI as well as enabling personal digital assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant decipher meaning of the user.

As Mr. Simonite noted, many of our libraries of knowledge are encoded in an “ancient technology largely opaque to machines-prose.”   Search engines like Google do not have a problem with a question asked in prose as they just have to find relevant links to pages. Yet this is a problem for Google Assistant, for instance, as machines can’t quickly extract meaning from the internet’s mess of “predicates, complements, sentences, and paragraphs. It requires a guide.”

Enter Wikidata.  According to founder Denny Vrandecic,

Language depends on knowing a lot of common sense, which computers don’t have access to

A wikidata entry (of which there are about 60 million) codes every concept and item with a numeric code, the QID code number. These codes are integrated with tags (like tags you use on Twitter as handles or tags in WordPress used for Search Engine Optimization) so computers can identify patterns of recognition between these codes.

Now human entry into these databases are critical as we add new facts and in particular meaning to each of these items.  Else, machines have problems deciphering our meaning like Apple’s Siri, where they had complained of dumb algorithms to interpret requests.

The knowledge of future machines could be shaped by you and me, not just tech companies and PhDs.

But this effort needs money

Wikimedia’s executive director, Katherine Maher, had prodded and cajoled these megacorporations for tapping the free resources of Wiki’s.  In response, Amazon and Facebook had donated millions for the Wikimedia projects.  Google recently gave 3.1 million USD$ in donations.

 

Future postings on the relevance and application of scientific curation will include:

Using Scientific Content Curation as a Method for Validation and Biocuration

 

Using Scientific Content Curation as a Method for Open Innovation

 

Other posts on this site related to Content Curation and Methodology include:

The growing importance of content curation

Data Curation is for Big Data what Data Integration is for Small Data

6 Steps to More Effective Content Curation

Stem Cells and Cardiac Repair: Content Curation & Scientific Reporting

Cancer Research: Curations and Reporting

Cardiovascular Diseases and Pharmacological Therapy: Curations

Cardiovascular Original Research: Cases in Methodology Design for Content Co-Curation The Art of Scientific & Medical Curation

Exploring the Impact of Content Curation on Business Goals in 2013

Power of Analogy: Curation in Music, Music Critique as a Curation and Curation of Medical Research Findings – A Comparison

conceived: NEW Definition for Co-Curation in Medical Research

The Young Surgeon and The Retired Pathologist: On Science, Medicine and HealthCare Policy – The Best Writers Among the WRITERS

Reconstructed Science Communication for Open Access Online Scientific Curation

 

 

Read Full Post »

CRISPR-Cas9 Foundational Technology originated at UC, Berkeley & UCSF, Broad Institute is developing Biotech Applications — Intellectual Property emerging as Legal Potential Dispute

Curator and Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Article ID #146: CRISPR-Cas9 Foundational Technology originated at UC, Berkeley & UCSF, Broad Institute is developing Biotech Applications — Intellectual Property emerging as Legal Potential Dispute. Published on 6/18/2014

WordCloud Image Produced by Adam Tubman

 

CRISPR-Cas9 Foundational Technology – The definition of “Prior Art” is at a very high stack, June 2014.

 

On 6/16/2014 Dr. Aviva Lev-Ari published the following two articles:

Lecture Contents delivered at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Summer Symposium 2014: RNA Biology, Cancer and Therapeutic Implications, June 13, 2014 @MIT
http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/06/16/lecture-contents-delivered-at-koch-institute-for-integrative-cancer-research-summer-symposium-2014-rna-biology-cancer-and-therapeutic-implications-june-13-2014-mit/

Prediction of the Winner RNA Technology, the FRONTIER of SCIENCE on RNA Biology, Cancer and Therapeutics & The Start Up Landscape in Boston
http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/06/16/prediction-of-the-winner-rna-technology-the-frontier-of-science-on-rna-biology-cancer-and-therapeutics-the-start-up-landscape-in-boston/

Other related articles on CRISPR-Cas9 Technology published on this Open Access Online Scientific Journal include the following:

2:15 – 2:45, 6/13/2014, Jennifer Doudna “The biology of CRISPRs: from genome defense to genetic engineering”

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/06/13/215-245-6132014-jennifer-doudna-the-biology-of-crisprs-from-genome-defense-to-genetic-engineering/http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/06/13/215-245-6132014-jennifer-doudna-the-biology-of-crisprs-from-genome-defense-to-genetic-engineering/

 

Ribozymes and RNA Machines – Work of Jennifer A. Doudna

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2013/04/15/ribozymes-and-rna-machines-work-of-jennifer-a-doudna/

 

CRISPR @MIT – Genome Surgery

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/04/21/crispr-mit-genome-surgery/

 

Gene Therapy and the Genetic Study of Disease: @Berkeley and @UCSF – New DNA-editing technology spawns bold UC initiative as Crispr Goes Global

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/03/27/gene-therapy-and-the-genetic-study-of-disease-berkeley-and-ucsf-new-dna-editing-technology-spawns-bold-uc-initiative-as-crispr-goes-global/

 

Diagnosing Diseases & Gene Therapy: Precision Genome Editing and Cost-effective microRNA Profiling

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2013/03/28/diagnosing-diseases-gene-therapy-precision-genome-editing-and-cost-effective-microrna-profiling/

 

An expanded-DNA Biology from Scripps Research Institute: Beyond A-T and C-G: Applications for new Medicines and Nanotechnology

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/05/11/an-expanded-dna-biology-from-scripps-research-institute-beyond-a-t-and-c-g-applications-for-new-medicines-and-nanotechnology/

 

Evaluate your Cas9 Gene Editing Vectors: CRISPR/Cas Mediated Genome Engineering – Is your CRISPR gRNA optimized for your cell lines?

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2014/03/25/evaluate-your-cas9-gene-editing-vectors-crisprcas-mediated-genome-engineering-is-your-crispr-grna-optimized-for-your-cell-lines/

 

CRISPR-Cas9 Technology Intellectual Property emerging as Legal Potential Dispute

As CRISPR-Cas9 Technology Sets to Take Off, Uncertainty Swirls Around IP Landscape

June 18, 2014

 

By Tony Fong

 

SOURCE

http://www.genomeweb.com//node/1404631?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CRISPR-Cas9%20IP%20Landscape;%20NIH,%20NSF%20to%20Help%20Biomed%20Startups;%20Diabetes%20Variant%20in%20Greenlanders;%20More%20-%2006/18/2014%2003:35:00%20PM

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – As the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology sets to take off, the patent landscape surrounding the method has quickly become muddled with stakeholders seeking a claim to what some are calling a foundational technology.

In April, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued the first patent, No. 8,697,359, for the CRISPR-Cas9 system to the Broad Institute, granting it intellectual property rights over a technology that, through its rapid adoption in the biotech space, is setting off what could be a scramble for IP rights over the technology and its applications and muddying the implications for both researchers and industry players using the technology.

“At the end of the day, the [CRISPR-Cas9] landscape is still very much in developmental stages,” Chelsea Loughran, an IP lawyer with the law firm Wolf Greenfield told GenomeWeb Daily News recently. “Just because the Broad got this patent, it definitely doesn’t foreclose other entities from getting patents in slightly different spaces, and I think a lot of the IP landscape has yet to play out.”

CRISPRs — short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats — are DNA loci containing short repetitions of base sequences. Though CRISPR sequences were first observed nearly 30 years ago, the CRISPR Cas system has been used for gene editing for only about two years. In that short time, though, it has gained wide acceptance in a number of biotech applications.

According to Feng Zhang, a core member of the Broad and the inventor listed on the ‘359 patent, all gene editing tools cut DNA. The advantage of CRISPR-Cas9 is that it offers a “significantly easier” method of reprogramming RNA to recognize a new DNA sequence.

Two other widely used gene editing technologies, TALEN and zinc fingers, work through protein DNA recognition, while CRISPR-Cas9 recognizes DNA through an RNA sequence that Watson-Crick base pairs with a target DNA, Zhang said. Cas9 is an enzyme that originally evolved in bacterial cells, “and in bacterial cells, it uses RNA to … to target DNA, so we engineered it so that it can target human DNA,” Zhang told GWDN. He and his colleagues described their method in Science in February 2013.

While there are other types of CRISPR technologies, the form of the technology based on Cas9 enzymes, called type II CRISPR, lends itself to biotech applications because of its simplicity, according to Zhang. The single enzyme Cas9 mediates DNA cleavage and targeting, while in other CRISPR systems, that targeting is achieved through a group of enzymes, making them more difficult to use.

Types I and III CRISPR, which have been used primarily for researching biological systems, also mediate bio-immunity inside bacterial cells and have the same effect as Type II, but because they do so through a group of enzymes, “that makes it more complicated to engineer,” Zhang said.

Additionally, he said that potential applications of CRISPR-Cas9 are wide ranging, and “using the Cas9 system, we can now basically engineer any organism we want by modifying its own genome.”

For example, the technology can be used to engineer better crops for agricultural or biomaterial applications. It can also be used to engineer biofuels “to optimize organisms so that you can increase the yields,” and to design plants that are drought-resistant, Zhang said.

Currently, he and his colleagues are pursuing multiple research paths with the technology, such as the generation of new model systems for biological research, including cellular models of human diseases. They also plan to use the technology to develop new animal models, such as mouse models. And they are using CRISPR-Cas9 for genetic screens in order “to better understand the function of genes,” and to study gene regulation to better understand the genome.

The most exciting possible use of CRISPR-Cas9, perhaps, is in the area of therapeutic development.

“For a monogenic recessive disorder due to loss-of-function mutations (such as cystic fibrosis, sickle-cell anemia, or Duchenne muscular dystrophy) Cas9 may be used to correct the causative mutation,” Zhang and colleagues wrote in a review article published this month in Cell. “This has many advantages over traditional methods of gene augmentation that deliver functional genetic copies via viral vector-mediated overexpression — particularly that the newly functional gene is expressed in its natural context.”

Two other studies also published this month underscore the potential far-reaching implications of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology in the therapeutic space. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers described a method based on CRISPR-Cas9 to engineer induced pluripotent stem cells to create HIV-resistant white blood cells, an approach that the scientists said “can be applied in the future toward the functional cure of HIV infection.”

And in Circulation Research, researchers said they used CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the function of the liver gene PCSK9. The method, they said, could eventually be used to reduce blood cholesterol and prevent heart disease in humans.

The financial stake around the CRISPR-Cas9 technology could be enormous. No dollar figure on the size of the market for the technology exists, but since late 2013, two firms have been launched to leverage CRISPR-Cas9 for therapeutic development, suggesting the technology’s market opportunity. Last November, Editas Medicine, which Zhang co-founded, was launched with a $43 million Series A investment round. Then, in April, shortly after the ‘359 patent was issued, Swiss biopharma firm CRISPR Therapeutics launched with a $25 million Series A investment to leverage CRISPR-Cas9 technology developed by Emmanuelle Charpentier, a professor at the Hannover Medical School in Germany.

In the meantime, numerous firms, including Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Life Technologies, Sigma-Aldrich, and Origene offer products based on the CRISPR-Cas9 system, and in late May, Taconic launched a CRISPR gene editing technology for mouse and rat models after securing a license from the Broad for Zhang’s technology.

Most recently, Horizon Discovery licensed Zhang’s technology, following a similar deal in May with ERS Genomics for Charpentier’s technology.

Complex IP picture

All this is happening even as the IP landscape around the technology has quickly become murky. The Broad may have received the first patent covering the CRISPR-Cas9 technology, but others may be forthcoming. In addition to Zhang, Editas’ co-founders include University of California, Berkeley researcher Jennifer Doudna, and the school has filed an application with the USPTO for CRISPR-Cas9 technology that she and Charpentier invented.

Doudna and Charpentier are also listed as co-inventors on the CRISPR-Cas9 technology being leveraged by CRISPR Therapeutics.

Doudna referred a request for an interview to the university’s technology transfer office, which declined to discuss its application, citing USPTO’s ongoing review.

Similarly, Charpentier declined a request for comment and referred questions to CRISPR Therapeutics CEO Rodger Novak who, through a spokesman, also declined to comment. Novak told Gene Silencing News recently, though, that he does not believe that patent issues will hold back the field.

“Because of the broad applicability of this technology … there will be room for more than just one or two players,” he said.

Regardless, Charpentier has made it clear that she believes that she is the inventor of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology. In a recent interview, she told UK publication The Independent, “The fundamental discovery comes from my laboratory and no one has told me that they have scooped me,” she said. “Be certain that this discovery did not happen by chance. I have been thinking, defending, and carrying this study from Austria to Sweden and now Germany.”

She added that she identified Cas9 while she was at Umea University in Sweden before she and Doudna co-authored a Science article on CRISP-Cas9 in August 2012. Editas “does not have access to the intellectual property of the patent where I’m the co-inventor,” even though Doudna is one of Editas’ founders, she told The Independent. “I made the decision to do something in Europe and I made the decision not to do something with Editas Medicine. I’m trying to remain true to myself,” Charpentier said.

Zhang declined to comment about the technology described in the patent application filed by UC Berkeley based on Charpentier and Doudna’s research, saying he was not familiar enough with it.

How the tangled IP landscape may affect the field is unclear, but in announcing his firm’s deal with the Broad earlier this month, Horizon Discovery CEO Darrin Disley alluded to potential problems, saying the UK company is securing access to the widest range of CRISPR technology possible in order “to ensure that our customers and partners are secure in the knowledge that they have the freedom to pursue their research and commercial goals when they choose to work with us.”

While the Broad is pursuing licensing deals with industry players for Zhang’s CRISPR-Cas9 system, it is also making reagents for the method available through a non-profit called Addgene, which runs a repository offering plasmids to scientists in academia and non-profit organizations. The Broad is not charging Addgene for the reagents although Addgene charges a fee to researchers for the tools. Additionally, Zhang said that his lab has provided CRISPR-Cas9 plasmids directly to researchers for free.

As UC Berkeley awaits the USPTO’s decision on its CRISPR-Cas9 application, IP lawyer Loughran said that whether a patent issued for the technology would duel with or complement the Broad’s patent could determine how the CRISPR-Cas9 field evolves.

Loughran questioned whether the field would evolve in such a way that the different IP holders would fight with each other, or whether they would coalesce their IP “under some licensing curve” that will then be available to researchers. At the moment, there are clear issue claims and pending claims with no way of telling what will be complementary or competitive claims, she said.

Both the Broad and UC Berkeley are pursuing similar patent protection for CRISPR-Cas9 for basic genomic editing purposes, but as UC Berkeley’s application goes through the USPTO review, the scope of its claims could be narrowed. The result is that what gets patented could be very different from what the university and its researchers sought, Loughran said.

“That is going to be the big question: Will it be possible for Berkeley to get claims issued that overlap with [the Broad’s], and if they do, then how is that going to play out?” she added. “Will there be a dispute between those two entities regarding who invented the subject matter first?”

She also pointed out that numerous other CRISPR-related patent applications were filed prior to the issuance of the Broad’s ‘359 patent — in some cases, several years before — but that the USPTO had yet to prosecute some of the applications. For example, Dupont’s Danisco business, which focuses on food ingredients, has applications for the use of CRISPR technology for food products and dietary supplements going back to at least 2005.

Writing in The Bureau of National Affairs earlier this year, Loughran and her colleague Patricia Granahan noted that published patent applications and issued patents that do not directly relate to genomic editing may, nevertheless, be cited as prior art to later-filed pending patent applications. They noted Danisco’s patent applications, as well as US Patent No. 8,546,553, issued to the University of Georgia Research Foundation and titled “Prokaryotic RNAi-like system and methods of use.” That patent includes claims around an isolated polynucleotide comprising at least 23 nucleotides, a psiRNA-tag, and guide sequence.

While such patent applications and/or issuances were filed before it was determined that CRISPR-Cas9 could be used in gene editing, “you wonder what kind of claims [the filers will] ultimately get from” their patent applications now that the Broad has been issued the ‘359 patent, Loughran told GWDN.

And now that it’s been demonstrated that the CRISPR-Cas9 system has use in therapeutic development, parties have started seeking IP protection for the technology around such purposes, including Sangamo Biosciences, for example, which has several patent applications with the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Last fall, just as the buzz around the technology was starting to build, Loughran started looking into the CRISPR-Cas9 IP space and found only a limited number of recent patent applications covering the technology. Since then, however, “the landscape has changed drastically and has drastically started to develop,” she said, adding that she anticipates much of the same in the near term.

“Over the next eight to 10 months, I think we’re going to have even more patent applications, potentially more patents issued, and hopefully, the outcome is positive for research and for technology in this area,” Loughran said.

Tony Fong is senior editor for GenomeWeb Daily News, tracking the firms that compete in the genomics tools and molecular diagnostics industries. E-mail Tony Fong or follow GWDN’s headlines at @DailyNewsGW.

Related Stories

CRISPR Therapeutics Launches with $25M Series A, Founders’ RNAi ExpertiseMay 1, 2014 / Gene Silencing News

Two Research Teams Detail Use of CRISPR-Cas9 Editing to Analyze Drug TargetsJune 16, 2014 / GenomeWeb Daily News

Genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 Screen Uncovers Genes Involved in Melanoma Treatment ResistanceMay 9, 2014 / GenomeWeb Daily News

Genomics in the JournalsDecember 26, 2013 / GenomeWeb Daily News

Sylentis Picks up Option to Alnylam RNAi IPNovember 17, 2011 / Gene Silencing News

 

SOURCE

http://www.genomeweb.com//node/1404631?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CRISPR-Cas9%20IP%20Landscape;%20NIH,%20NSF%20to%20Help%20Biomed%20Startups;%20Diabetes%20Variant%20in%20Greenlanders;%20More%20-%2006/18/2014%2003:35:00%20PM

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MIND AND MEMORY: BIOLOGICAL AND DIGITAL – 2014 Dan David Prize Symposium

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Article ID #145: MIND AND MEMORY: BIOLOGICAL AND DIGITAL – 2014 Dan David Prize Symposium. Published on 6/18/2014

WordCloud Image Produced by Adam Tubman

 

View VIDEO for this Symposium, link provided following the Symposium Agenda

Mind and Memory: Biological and Digital

with the 2014 Dan David Prize Laureates in the Present and Future Time Dimensions

 

Prof. John A. Hardy, Prof. Peter St. George-Hyslop,

Prof. Brenda Milner and

Prof. Marvin Minsky

The symposium will take place on Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at 8:30 a.m.

The Miriam and Adolfo Smolarz Auditorium, Tel Aviv University

 

Moderators:

Prof. Uri Ashery

Sagol School of Neuroscience

Tel Aviv University

Prof. Nachum Dershowitz

The Blavatnik School of Computer Science

Tel Aviv University

8:30 Gathering

9:00 Greetings

Prof. Yoav Henis

Vice President, Research and Development

Tel Aviv University

HE Mr. Matthew Gould

The British Ambassador to Israel

9:15 Prof. John A. Hardy

University College London, UK

“Whole Genome Analysis and the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease”

9:55 Prof. Peter St. George-Hyslop

University of Toronto, Canada

University of Cambridge, UK

“Biochemical Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease”

10:35 Prof. Danny Michaelson

Sagol School of Neuroscience

and Department of Neurobiology

Tel Aviv University

“Translational Alzheimer’s Disease Research at Tel Aviv University”

10:50 Coffee Break

11:30 Prof. Brenda Milner

McGill University, Canada

“Temporal Lobes and Memory: Looking Back and Looking Forward”

12:10 Dr. Segev Barak

The School of Psychological Sciences

and Sagol School of Neuroscience

Tel Aviv University

“Preventing Relapse in Alcoholism by Memory Erasure:

Neurobiological Mechanisms of Memory Plasticity”

12:25 Lunch Break and Poster Viewing

14:15 Prof. Yael Hanein

School of Electrical Engineering

and Sagol School of Neuroscience

Tel Aviv University

“How Many Neurons Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?”

14:30 Prof. Lior Wolf

The Blavatnik School of Computer Science

Tel Aviv University

“DeepFace: Closing the Gap to Human-Level Performance in Face Verification”

14:45 Prof. Nathan Intrator

The Blavatnik School of Computer Science

and Sagol School of Neuroscience

Tel Aviv University

“Brain Inspired Computation in the 21st Century”

15:00 Prof. Marvin Minsky

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

“Future Theories of Mind”

15:40 Concluding Remarks

 

VIEW VIDEO

http://dandavidprize.org/media-events/symposia/2014/694-mind-and-memory-biological-and-digital

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