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Posts Tagged ‘Social media’

How Will FDA’s new precisionFDA Science2.0 Collaboration Platform Protect Data

Posted in Clinical & Translational, Clinical Diagnostics, Clinical Genomics, Computational Biology/Systems and Bioinformatics, Curation, Curation methodology, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, tagged #science2_0, @science 2_0, biocuration, clinical genomics, Curation, NGS, Open access, scientific networks, Social media, Social network, Social science on December 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

How Will FDA’s new precisionFDA Science 2.0 Collaboration Platform Protect Data?

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

As reported in MassDevice.com

FDA launches precisionFDA to harness the power of scientific collaboration

December 16, 2015 By MassDevice Leave a Comment

By: Taha A. Kass-Hout, M.D., M.S. and Elaine Johanson

Imagine a world where doctors have at their fingertips the information that allows them to individualize a diagnosis, treatment or even a cure for a person based on their genes. That’s what President Obama envisioned when he announced his Precision Medicine Initiative earlier this year. Today, with the launch of FDA’s precisionFDA web platform, we’re a step closer to achieving that vision.

PrecisionFDA is an online, cloud-based, portal that will allow scientists from industry, academia, government and other partners to come together to foster innovation and develop the science behind a method of “reading” DNA known as next-generation sequencing (or NGS). Next Generation Sequencing allows scientists to compile a vast amount of data on a person’s exact order or sequence of DNA. Recognizing that each person’s DNA is slightly different, scientists can look for meaningful differences in DNA that can be used to suggest a person’s risk of disease, possible response to treatment and assess their current state of health. Ultimately, what we learn about these differences could be used to design a treatment tailored to a specific individual.

The precisionFDA platform is a part of this larger effort and through its use we want to help scientists work toward the most accurate and meaningful discoveries. precisionFDA users will have access to a number of important tools to help them do this. These tools include reference genomes, such as “Genome in the Bottle,” a reference sample of DNA for validating human genome sequences developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Users will also be able to compare their results to previously validated reference results as well as share their results with other users, track changes and obtain feedback.

Over the coming months we will engage users in improving the usability, openness and transparency of precisionFDA. One way we’ll achieve that is by placing the code for the precisionFDA portal on the world’s largest open source software repository, GitHub, so the community can further enhance precisionFDA’s features.Through such collaboration we hope to improve the quality and accuracy of genomic tests – work that will ultimately benefit patients.

precisionFDA leverages our experience establishing openFDA, an online community that provides easy access to our public datasets. Since its launch in 2014, openFDA has already resulted in many novel ways to use, integrate and analyze FDA safety information. We’re confident that employing such a collaborative approach to DNA data will yield important advances in our understanding of this fast-growing scientific field, information that will ultimately be used to develop new diagnostics, treatments and even cures for patients.

Taha A. Kass-Hout, M.D., M.S., is FDA’s Chief Health Informatics Officer and Director of FDA’s Office of Health Informatics. Elaine Johanson is the precisionFDA Project Manager.

The opinions expressed in this blog post are the author’s only and do not necessarily reflect those of MassDevice.com or its employees.

So What Are the Other Successes With Such Open Science 2.0 Collaborative Networks?

In the following post there are highlighted examples of these Open Scientific Networks and, as long as

transparancy
equal contributions (lack of heirarchy)

exists these networks can flourish and add interesting discourse. Scientists are already relying on these networks to collaborate and share however resistance by certain members of an “elite” can still exist. Social media platforms are now democratizing this new science2.0 effort. In addition the efforts of multiple biocurators (who mainly work for love of science) have organized the plethora of data (both genomic, proteomic, and literature) in order to provide ease of access and analysis.

Science and Curation: The New Practice of Web 2.0

Curation: an Essential Practice to Manage “Open Science”

The web 2.0 gave birth to new practices motivated by the will to have broader and faster cooperation in a more free and transparent environment. We have entered the era of an “open” movement: “open data”, “open software”, etc. In science, expressions like “open access” (to scientific publications and research results) and “open science” are used more and more often.

Curation and Scientific and Technical Culture: Creating Hybrid Networks

Another area, where there are most likely fewer barriers, is scientific and technical culture. This broad term involves different actors such as associations, companies, universities’ communication departments, CCSTI (French centers for scientific, technical and industrial culture), journalists, etc. A number of these actors do not limit their work to popularizing the scientific data; they also consider they have an authentic mission of “culturing” science. The curation practice thus offers a better organization and visibility to the information. The sought-after benefits will be different from one actor to the next.

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

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

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

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

However another issue would be Individual Bias if these networks are closed and protocols need to be devised to reduce bias from individual investigators, clinicians. This is where CONSENSUS built from OPEN ACCESS DISCOURSE would be beneficial as discussed in the following post:

Risk of Bias in Translational Science

As per the article

Risk of bias in translational medicine may take one of three forms:

a systematic error of methodology as it pertains to measurement or sampling (e.g., selection bias),
a systematic defect of design that leads to estimates of experimental and control groups, and of effect sizes that substantially deviate from true values (e.g., information bias), and
a systematic distortion of the analytical process, which results in a misrepresentation of the data with consequential errors of inference (e.g., inferential bias).

This post highlights many important points related to bias but in summarry there can be methodologies and protocols devised to eliminate such bias. Risk of bias can seriously adulterate the internal and the external validity of a clinical study, and, unless it is identified and systematically evaluated, can seriously hamper the process of comparative effectiveness and efficacy research and analysis for practice. The Cochrane Group and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality have independently developed instruments for assessing the meta-construct of risk of bias. The present article begins to discuss this dialectic.

Information dissemination to all stakeholders is key to increase their health literacy in order to ensure their full participation
threats to internal and external validity represent specific aspects of systematic errors (i.e., bias)in design, methodology and analysis

So what about the safety and privacy of Data?

A while back I did a post and some interviews on how doctors in developing countries are using social networks to communicate with patients, either over established networks like Facebook or more private in-house networks. In addition, these doctor-patient relationships in developing countries are remote, using the smartphone to communicate with rural patients who don’t have ready access to their physicians.

Located in the post Can Mobile Health Apps Improve Oral-Chemotherapy Adherence? The Benefit of Gamification.

I discuss some of these problems in the following paragraph and associated posts below:

Mobile Health Applications on Rise in Developing World: Worldwide Opportunity

According to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) statistics, world-wide mobile phone use has expanded tremendously in the past 5 years, reaching almost 6 billion subscriptions. By the end of this year it is estimated that over 95% of the world’s population will have access to mobile phones/devices, including smartphones.

This presents a tremendous and cost-effective opportunity in developing countries, and especially rural areas, for physicians to reach patients using mHealth platforms.

How Social Media, Mobile Are Playing a Bigger Part in Healthcare

E-Medical Records Get A Mobile, Open-Sourced Overhaul By White House Health Design Challenge Winners

In Summary, although there are restrictions here in the US governing what information can be disseminated over social media networks, developing countries appear to have either defined the regulations as they are more dependent on these types of social networks given the difficulties in patient-physician access.

Therefore the question will be Who Will Protect The Data?

For some interesting discourse please see the following post

Atul Butte Talks on Big Data, Open Data and Clinical Trials

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Lab Grown Brains and more from Twittersphere on 3D Bio-Printing News

Posted in 3D Plotting Scaffolds, 3D Printing for Medical Application, 4D Printing and Meta Materials, BioPrinting in Regenerative Medicine, tagged 3-D bioprinting, 3D printing, artificial artery, brain, conservation, ethical issues, health, medicine, Social media, Twitter on November 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Lab Grown Brains and more from Twittersphere on 3D Bio-Printing News

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D

How Tiny Lab-Grown Human Brains Are Giving Big Insights Into Autism and more from the Twittershpere

https://twitter.com/singularityhub/status/664508353771610112

(more…)

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Using Twitter to Understand the Experience of MRI Patients

Posted in Image Processing/Computing, Imaging-based Cancer Patient Management, MRI, tagged imaging-based patients' management, MRI, patient experience, Social media, Twitter on October 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Twitter Offers Valuable Insights Into The Experience Of MRI Patients, Charles Sturt University Study

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

10/28/2015 6:52:34 AM

Read at:

Twitter offers valuable insights into the experience of MRI patients

Tweets can give medical professionals a window into the minds of patients, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences

Philadelphia, PA, October 28, 2015 – Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) can be a stressful experience for many people, but clinicians have few ways to track the thoughts and feelings of their patients regarding this procedure. While the social networking site Twitter is known for breaking news and celebrity tweets, it may also prove to be a valuable feedback tool for medical professionals looking to improve the patient experience, according to a new study published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences.

Johnathan Hewis, MSc, PgCert (LTHE), PgCert (BE), BSc Hon, an investigator from Charles Sturt University in Australia, analyzed 464 tweets related to MRI over the course of one month and found that patients, their friends, and family members were sharing their thoughts and feelings about all aspects of the procedure through the microblogging site. Tweets were categorized into three themes: MRI appointment, scan experience, and diagnosis.

Twitter is a giant in the social media space. In 2014, 19% of the entire adult population of the U.S. used Twitter, with almost 90% of those individuals accessing the service from their mobile phones. Because it is so ubiquitous, Twitter can provide crucial new insights to which practitioners would otherwise not be privy. In the study, patients expressed anxiety about many aspects of the process, including a lot of stress over the possibility of bad news. “The findings of this study indicate that anticipatory anxiety can manifest over an extended time period and that the focus can shift and change along the MRI journey,” explained Hewis. “An appreciation of anxiety related to results is an important clinical consideration for MRI facilities and referrers.”

The study found that tweets encapsulated patient thoughts about many other parts of the procedure including the cost, the feelings of claustrophobia, having to keep still during the scan, and the sound the MRI machine makes. One particularly memorable tweet about the sound read, “Ugh, having an MRI is like being inside a pissed off fax machine!”

Not all the tweets were centered around stress. Many friends and family members expressed sentiments of support including prayers and offering messages of strength. Some patients used Twitter to praise their healthcare team or give thanks for good results. Others spoke about the fact they liked having an MRI because it gave them some time to themselves or offered them a chance to nap.

Twitter isn’t just words, it’s also a way to share pictures. “An unexpected discovery of the examination preparation process was the ‘MRI gown selfie,'” revealed Hewis. “Fifteen patients tweeted a self-portrait photograph taken inside the changing cubicle while posing in their MRI gown/scrubs. Anecdotally, the ‘MRI gown selfie’ seemed to transcend age.”

During the course of his analysis, Hewis discovered that many patients took issue with the fact that they were not allowed to select the music they listened to during the MRI. “Music choice,” said Hewis, “is a simple intervention that can provide familiarity within a ‘terrifying’ environment.’ The findings of this study reinforce the ‘good practice’ of enabling patients’ choice of music, which may alleviate procedural anxiety.”

With such a broad reach, social networks like Twitter offer medical practitioners the opportunity to access previously unavailable information from their patients, which can help them continuously improve the MRI experience. “MRI patients do tweet about their experiences and these correlate with published findings employing more traditional participant recruitment methods,” concluded Hewis. “This study demonstrates the potential use of Twitter as a viable platform to conduct research into the patient experience within the medical radiation sciences.”

Media Contact

Chris Baumle
hmsmedia@elsevier.com
215-239-3731

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Twitter, Google, LinkedIn Enter in the Curation Foray: What’s Up With That?

Posted in Academic Publishing, Conference Coverage with Social Media, Curation, Curation methodology, Discovery process, Explanatory, Historical relevance, tagged Aviva Lev-Ari, Conference Coverage with Social Media, Content Curation, Google, Larry H. Bernstein, medicine, science, Social media, Twitter on October 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Twitter, Google, LinkedIn Enter in the Curation Foray: What’s Up With That?

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Recently Twitter has announced a new feature which they hope to use to increase engagement on their platform. Originally dubbed Project Lightning and now called Moments, this feature involves many human curators which aggregate and curate tweets surrounding individual live events(which used to be under #Live).

As Madhu Muthukumar (@justmadhu), Twitter’s Product Manager, published a blog post describing Moments said:

“Every day, people share hundreds of millions of tweets. Among them are things you can’t experience anywhere but on Twitter: conversations between world leaders and celebrities, citizens reporting events as they happen, cultural memes, live commentary on the night’s big game, and many more,” the blog post noted. “We know finding these only-on-Twitter moments can be a challenge, especially if you haven’t followed certain accounts. But it doesn’t have to be.”

Please see more about Moments on his blog here.

Moments is a new tab on Twitter’s mobile and desktop home screens where the company will curate trending topics as they’re unfolding in real-time — from citizen-reported news to cultural memes to sports events and more. Moments will fall into five total categories, including “Today,” “News,” “Sports,” “Entertainment” and “Fun.” (Source: Fox)

Now It’s Google’s Turn

As Dana Blankenhorn wrote in his article Twitter, Google Try It Buzzfeed’s Way With Curation

in SeekingAlpha

“

What’s a challenge for Google is a direct threat to Twitter’s existence.

For all the talk about what doesn’t work in journalism, curation works. Following the news, collecting it and commenting, and encouraging discussion, is the “secret sauce” for companies like Buzzfeed, Vox, Vice and The Huffington Post, which often wind up getting more traffic from a story at, say The New York Times (NYSE:NYT), than the Times does as a result.

Curation is, in some ways, a throwback to the pre-Internet era. It’s done by people. (At least I think I’m a people.) So as odd as it is for Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to announce it will curate live events it’s even odder to see Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) doing it in a project called YouTube Newswire.

Buzzfeed, Google’s content curation platform, made for desktop as well as a mobile app, allows sharing of curated news, viral videos.

The feel for both Twitter and Google’s content curation will be like a newspaper, with an army of human content curators determining what is the trendiest news to read or videos to watch.

BuzzFeed articles, or at least, the headlines can easily be mined from any social network but reading the whole article still requires that you open the link within the app or outside using a mobile web browser. Loading takes some time–a few seconds longer. Try browsing the BuzzFeed feed on the app and you’ll notice the obvious difference.

However it was earlier this summer in a Forbes article Why Apple, Snapchat and Twitter are betting on human editors, but Facebook and Google aren’t that Apple, Snapchat and Twitter as well as LinkedIn Pulse and Instragram were going to use human editors and curators while Facebook and Google were going to rely on their powerful algorithms. Google (now Alphabet) CEO Eric Schmidt has even called Apple’s human curated playlists “elitist” although Google Play has human curated playlists.

Maybe Google is responding to views on its Google News like this review in VentureBeat:

“

Google News: Less focused on social signals than textual ones, Google News uses its analytic tools to group together related stories and highlight the biggest ones. Unlike Techmeme, it’s entirely driven by algorithms, and that means it often makes weird choices. I’ve heard that Google uses social sharing signals from Google+ to help determine which stories appear on Google News, but have never heard definitive confirmation of that — and now that Google+ is all but dead, it’s mostly moot. I find Google News an unsatisfying home page, but it is a good place to search for news once you’ve found it.

“

Now WordPress Too!

WordPress also has announced its curation plugin called Curation Traffic.

According to WordPress

You Own the Platform, You Benefit from the Traffic

“The Curation Traffic™ System is a complete WordPress based content curation solution. Giving you all the tools and strategies you need to put content curation into action.

It is push-button simple and seamlessly integrates with any WordPress site or blog.

With Curation Traffic™, curating your first post is as easy as clicking “Curate” and the same post that may originally only been sent to Facebook or Twitter is now sent to your own site that you control, you benefit from, and still goes across all of your social sites.”

The theory the more you share on your platform the more engagement the better marketing experience. And with all the WordPress users out there they have already an army of human curators.

So That’s Great For News But What About Science and Medicine?

The news and trendy topics such as fashion and music are common in most people’s experiences. However more technical areas of science, medicine, engineering are not in most people’s domain so aggregation of content needs a process of peer review to sort basically “the fact from fiction”. On social media this is extremely important as sensational stories of breakthroughs can spread virally without proper vetting and even influence patient decisions about their own personal care.

Expertise Depends on Experience

In steps the human experience. On this site (www.pharmaceuticalintelligence.com) we attempt to do just this. A consortium of M.D.s, Ph.D. and other medical professionals spend their own time to aggregate not only topics of interest but curate on specific topics to add some more insight from acceptable sources over the web.

In Power of Analogy: Curation in Music, Music Critique as a Curation and Curation of Medical Research Findings – A Comparison; Dr. Larry Berstein compares a museum or music curator to curation of scientific findings and literature and draws similar conclusions from each: that a curation can be a tool to gain new insights previously unseen an observer. A way of stepping back to see a different picture, hear a different song.

For instance, using a Twitter platform, we curate #live meeting notes and tweets from meeting attendees (please see links below and links within) to give a live conference coverage

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

and curation and analysis give rise not only to meeting engagement butunique insights into presentations.

In addition, the use of a WordPress platform allows easy sharing among many different social platforms including Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc.

Hopefully, this will catch on to the big powers of Twitter, Google and Facebook to realize there exists armies of niche curation communities which they can draw on for expert curation in the biosciences.

Inevitability of Curation: Scientific Publishing moves to embrace Open Data, Libraries and Researchers are trying to keep up

The Methodology of Curation for Scientific Research Findings

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

The growing importance of content curation

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

Stem Cells and Cardiac Repair: Content Curation & Scientific Reporting

Cardiovascular Diseases and Pharmacological Therapy: Curations

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

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LPBI Presents at Life Sciences Collaborative

Posted in Academic Publishing, BioTechnology - Venture Creation, Curation, Evolutionary cognition, Explanatory, Pharmaceutical Industry Competitive Intelligence, Pharmaceutical R&D Informatics, Pharmaceutical R&D Investment, Scientific & Biotech Conferences: Press Coverage, Social Development, Venture Capital, tagged Aviva Lev-Ari, Biotechnology, Biotechnology Industry Organization, Business incubator, Business intelligence, Business model, competetive intelligence, Conference Coverage with Social Media, Content Curation, curation communities, health, Larry H. Bernstein, Leaders in Pharmaceutical Intelligence, Life Sciences, pharmaceutical competitive intelligence, philadelphia, small business development, Social media on June 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Leaders in Pharmaceutical Intelligence Presentation at The Life Sciences Collaborative

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D. Website Analytics: Adam Sonnenberg, BSc Leaders in Pharmaceutical Intelligence presented their ongoing efforts to develop an open-access scientific and medical publishing and curation platform to The Life Science Collaborative, an executive pharmaceutical and biopharma networking group in the Philadelphia/New Jersey area.

Our Team

For more information on the Vision, Funding Deals and Partnerships please see our site at http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/vision/

For more information about our Team please see our site at http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/contributors-biographies/

For more information of LPBI Deals and Partnerships please see our site at http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/joint-ventures/

For more information about our BioMed E-Series please see our site at http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/biomed-e-books/

E-Book Titles by LPBI

For more information on Real-Time Conference Coverage including a full list of Conferences Covered by LPBI please go to http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

For more information on Real-Time Conference Coverage and a full listing of Conferences Covered by LPBI please go to:

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

The Pennsylvania (PA) and New Jersey (NJ) Biotech environment had been hit hard by the recession and loss of anchor big pharma companies however as highlighted by our interviews in “The Vibrant Philly Biotech Scene” and other news outlets, additional issues are preventing the PA/NJ area from achieving its full potential (discussions also with LSC)

Download the PowerPoint slides here: Presentationlsc

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Twitter is Becoming a Powerful Tool in Science and Medicine

Posted in Academic Publishing, Clinical Diagnostics, Computational Biology/Systems and Bioinformatics, Conference Coverage with Social Media, Curation, Curation methodology, Digital HealthCare – biotech & internet joint ventures, Drug Toxicity, Evolutionary cognition, FDA, FDA Regulatory Affairs, Global Partnering & Biotech Investment, Health Economics and Outcomes Research, HealthCare IT, Interviews with Scientific Leaders, Investment in Technological Breakthrough, Personal Health Applications: Tech Innovations serves HealhCare, Pharmaceutical Analytics, Pharmaceutical Discovery, Pharmacologic toxicities, Regulated Clinical Trials: Design, Methods, Components and IRB related issues, Scientific & Biotech Conferences: Press Coverage, tagged #mobilehealth, #science2_0, @science 2_0, Adverse event, Aviva Lev-Ari, Cancer - General, cancer patient management, Clinical trial, Conditions and Diseases, Conference Coverage with Social Media, Content Curation, Curation methodology, Food and Drug Administration, health, https://twitter.com/#!/pharma_BI, medical devices and digital health, medicine, mobile applications, patient outcomes, patient-interaction, Pharmacovigilance, research, science, Social media, Social network, Twitter on November 6, 2014| 1 Comment »

Twitter is Becoming a Powerful Tool in Science and Medicine

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Updated 4/2016

Twitter.com

A recent Science article (Who are the science stars of Twitter?; Sept. 19, 2014) reported the top 50 scientists followed on Twitter. However, the article tended to focus on the use of Twitter as a means to develop popularity, a sort of “Science Kardashian” as they coined it. So the writers at Science developed a “Kardashian Index (K-Index) to determine scientists following and popularity on Twitter.

Now as much buzz Kim Kardashian or a Perez Hilton get on social media, their purpose is solely for entertainment and publicity purposes, the Science sort of fell flat in that it focused mainly on the use of Twitter as a metric for either promotional or public outreach purposes. A notable scientist was mentioned in the article, using Twitter feed to gauge the receptiveness of his presentation. In addition, relying on Twitter for effective public discourse of science is problematic as:

Twitter feeds are rapidly updated and older feeds quickly get buried within the “Twittersphere” = LIMITED EXPOSURE TIMEFRAME
Short feeds may not provide the access to appropriate and understandable scientific information (The Science Communication Trap) which is explained in The Art of Communicating Science: traps, tips and tasks for the modern-day scientist. “The challenge of clearly communicating the intended scientific message to the public is not insurmountable but requires an understanding of what works and what does not work.” – from Heidi Roop, G.-Martinez-Mendez and K. Mills

However, as highlighted below, Twitter, and other social media platforms are being used in creative ways to enhance the research, medical, and bio investment collaborative, beyond a simple news-feed. And the power of Twitter can be attributed to two simple features

Ability to organize – through use of the hashtag (#) and handle (@), Twitter assists in the very important task of organizing, indexing, and ANNOTATING content and conversations. A very great article on Why the Hashtag in Probably the Most Powerful Tool on Twitter by Vanessa Doctor explains how hashtags and # search may be as popular as standard web-based browser search. Thorough annotation is crucial for any curation process, which are usually in the form of database tags or keywords. The use of # and @ allows curators to quickly find, index and relate disparate databases to link annotated information together. The discipline of scientific curation requires annotation to assist in the digital preservation, organization, indexing, and access of data and scientific & medical literature. For a description of scientific curation methodologies please see the following links:

Please read the following articles on CURATION

The Methodology of Curation for Scientific Research Findings

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

Science and Curation: The New Practice of Web 2.0

Information Analytics –

Multiple analytic software packages have been made available to analyze information surrounding Twitter feeds, including Twitter feeds from #chat channels one can set up to cover a meeting, product launch etc.. Some of these tools include:

Twitter Analytics – measures metrics surrounding Tweets including retweets, impressions, engagement, follow rate, …

Twitter Analytics – Hashtags.org – determine most impactful # for your Tweets For example, meeting coverage of bioinvestment conferences or startup presentations using #startup generates automatic retweeting by Startup tweetbot @StartupTweetSF.

Tweet Sentiment Analytics

Examples of Twitter Use

A. Scientific Meeting Coverage

The 2013 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Annual Spring Conference. integrated social media with meeting proceedings to enhance conference engagement

In a paper entitled Twitter Use at a Family Medicine Conference: Analyzing #STFM13 authors Ranit Mishori, MD, Frendan Levy, MD, and Benjamin Donvan analyzed the public tweets from the 2013 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) conference bearing the meeting-specific hashtag #STFM13. Thirteen percent of conference attendees (181 users) used the #STFM13 to share their thoughts on the meeting (1,818 total tweets) showing a desire for social media interaction at conferences but suggesting growth potential in this area. As we have also seen, the heaviest volume of conference-tweets originated from a small number of Twitter users however most tweets were related to session content.

However, as the authors note, although it is easy to measure common metrics such as number of tweets and retweets, determining quality of engagement from tweets would be important for gauging the value of Twitter-based social-media coverage of medical conferences.

Thea authors compared their results with similar analytics generated by the HealthCare Hashtag Project, a project and database of medically-related hashtag use, coordinated and maintained by the company Symplur. Symplur’s database includes medical and scientific conference Twitter coverage but also Twitter usuage related to patient care. In this case the database was used to compare meeting tweets and hashtag use with the 2012 STFM conference.

These are some of the published journal articles that have employed Symplur (www.symplur.com) data in their research of Twitter usage in medical conferences.

The impact of social media on a major international emergency medicine conference.
Neill, A., Cronin, J. J., Brannigan, D., O’Sullivan, R., & Cadogan, M. (2013). The impact of social media on a major international emergency medicine conference. Emergency Medicine Journal, emermed-2012. Chicago
Social media in radiology: early trends in Twitter microblogging at radiology’s largest international meeting.
Hawkins, C. M., Duszak, R., & Rawson, J. V. (2014). Social Media in Radiology: Early Trends in Twitter Microblogging at Radiology’s Largest International Meeting. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 11(4), 387-390.
International Urology Journal Club via Twitter: 12-Month Experience.
Thangasamy, I. A., Leveridge, M., Davies, B. J., Finelli, A., Stork, B., & Woo, H. H. (2014). International Urology Journal Club via Twitter: 12-Month Experience. European urology.
Use of social media in urology: data from the American Urological Association (AUA).
Loeb, S., Bayne, C. E., Frey, C., Davies, B. J., Averch, T. D., Woo, H. H., … & Eggener, S. E. (2014). Use of social media in urology: data from the American Urological Association (AUA). BJU international, 113(6), 993-998. Chicago.
Social media: A tool to spread information: A case study analysis of Twitter conversation at the Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand 61st Annual Scientific Meeting 2013.
Ferguson, C., Inglis, S. C., Newton, P. J., Cripps, P. J., Macdonald, P. S., & Davidson, P. M. (2014). Social media: A tool to spread information: A case study analysis of Twitter conversation at the Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand 61st Annual Scientific Meeting 2013. Collegian.

Here, at Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LBPI) we have integrated our web site, Twitter handle (@pharma_BI), and meeting specific hashtags, with a unique methodology, to monitor and measure meeting participant engagement for various international meetings (please see our Press Coverage section of our site for more information). These meetings included the 2nd Annual Sachs Associates Cancer BioInvestment & Partnering Forum and the 14^th Annual Sachs Associates Global Forum.

B. Twitter Usage for Patient Care and Engagement

Although the desire of patients to use and interact with their physicians over social media is increasing, along with increasing health-related social media platforms and applications, there are certain obstacles to patient-health provider social media interaction, including lack of regulatory framework as well as database and security issues. Some of the successes and issues of social media and healthcare are discussed in the post Can Mobile Health Apps Improve Oral-Chemotherapy Adherence? The Benefit of Gamification.

However there is also a concern if social media truly engages the patient and improves patient education. In a study of Twitter communications by breast cancer patients Tweeting about breast cancer, authors noticed Tweeting was a singular event. The majority of tweets did not promote any specific preventive behavior. The authors concluded “Twitter is being used mostly as a one-way communication tool.” (Using Twitter for breast cancer prevention: an analysis of breast cancer awareness month. Thackeray R¹, Burton SH, Giraud-Carrier C, Rollins S, Draper CR. BMC Cancer. 2013;13:508).

In addition a new poll by Harris Interactive and HealthDay shows one third of patients want some mobile interaction with their physicians.

Some papers cited in Symplur’s HealthCare Hashtag Project database on patient use of Twitter include:

e-Patients in Twitter Hashtag Communities.
Harmel M, Young K. e-Patients in twitter hashtag communities . J Participat Med. 2013 Jan 16; 5:e22
Nurses and Twitter: The good, the bad, and the reluctant.
Wilson, R., Ranse, J., Cashin, A., & McNamara, P. (2013). Nurses and Twitter: The good, the bad, and the reluctant. Collegian. Chicago.
Using social media for continuous professional development.
Moorley, C., & Chinn, T. (2014). Using social media for continuous professional development. Journal of advanced nursing.
Networking opportunities for learning disability nurses.
Abdulla, S., Marsden, D., Wilson, S., & Parker, M. (2013). Networking opportunities for learning disability nurses: Samuel Abdulla and colleagues explain why social media offer professionals new opportunities for information sharing, discussion and peer support. Learning Disability Practice, 16(5), 30-32.
Using Twitter for professional knowledge.
Kraft, M. A. (2013). Using Twitter for professional knowledge. Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries, 9(4), 10.
A Study on the Influence of Semantics on the Analysis of Micro-blog Tags in the Medical Domain.
Vicient, C., & Moreno, A. (2013). A Study on the Influence of Semantics on the Analysis of Micro-blog Tags in the Medical Domain. In Availability, Reliability, and Security in Information Systems and HCI (pp. 446-459). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Twitter for Public Health: An Open-source Data Solution.
Nghiema, S., Mehtab, P., & Taoc, L. Twitter for Public Health: An Open-source Data Solution. Chicago.

C. Twitter Use in Pharmacovigilance to Monitor Adverse Events

Pharmacovigilance is the systematic detection, reporting, collecting, and monitoring of adverse events pre- and post-market of a therapeutic intervention (drug, device, modality e.g.). In a Cutting Edge Information Study, 56% of pharma companies databases are an adverse event channel and more companies are turning to social media to track adverse events (in Pharmacovigilance Teams Turn to Technology for Adverse Event Reporting Needs). In addition there have been many reports (see Digital Drug Safety Surveillance: Monitoring Pharmaceutical Products in Twitter) that show patients are frequently tweeting about their adverse events.

There have been concerns with using Twitter and social media to monitor for adverse events. For example FDA funded a study where a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and other academic centers examined more than 60,000 tweets, of which 4,401 were manually categorized as resembling adverse events and compared with the FDA pharmacovigilance databases. Problems associated with such social media strategy were inability to obtain extra, needed information from patients and difficulty in separating the relevant Tweets from irrelevant chatter. The UK has launched a similar program called WEB-RADR to determine if monitoring #drug_reaction could be useful for monitoring adverse events. Many researchers have found the adverse-event related tweets “noisy” due to varied language but had noticed many people do understand some principles of causation including when adverse event subsides after discontinuing the drug.

However Dr. Clark Freifeld, Ph.D., from Boston University and founder of the startup Epidemico, feels his company has the algorithms that can separate out the true adverse events from the junk. According to their web site, their algorithm has high accuracy when compared to the FDA database. Dr. Freifeld admits that Twitter use for pharmacovigilance purposes is probably a starting point for further follow-up, as each patient needs to fill out the four-page forms required for data entry into the FDA database.

D. Use of Twitter in Big Data Analytics

Published on Aug 28, 2012

http://blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/i29…

Course: Information 290. Analyzing Big Data with Twitter
School of Information
UC Berkeley

Lecture 1: August 23, 2012

Course description:
How to store, process, analyze and make sense of Big Data is of increasing interest and importance to technology companies, a wide range of industries, and academic institutions. In this course, UC Berkeley professors and Twitter engineers will lecture on the most cutting-edge algorithms and software tools for data analytics as applied to Twitter microblog data. Topics will include applied natural language processing algorithms such as sentiment analysis, large scale anomaly detection, real-time search, information diffusion and outbreak detection, trend detection in social streams, recommendation algorithms, and advanced frameworks for distributed computing. Social science perspectives on analyzing social media will also be covered.

This is a hands-on project course in which students are expected to form teams to complete intensive programming and analytics projects using the real-world example of Twitter data and code bases. Engineers from Twitter will help advise student projects, and students will have the option of presenting their final project presentations to an audience of engineers at the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco (in addition to on campus). Project topics include building on existing infrastructure tools, building Twitter apps, and analyzing Twitter data. Access to data will be provided.

Other posts on this site on USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND TWITTER IN HEALTHCARE and Conference Coverage include:

Methodology for Conference Coverage using Social Media: 2014 MassBio Annual Meeting 4/3 – 4/4 2014, Royal Sonesta Hotel, Cambridge, MA

Strategy for Event Joint Promotion: 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

REAL TIME Cancer Conference Coverage: A Novel Methodology for Authentic Reporting on Presentations and Discussions launched via Twitter.com @ The 2nd ANNUAL Sachs Cancer Bio Partnering & Investment Forum in Drug Development, 19th March 2014 • New York Academy of Sciences • USA

PCCI’s 7th Annual Roundtable “Crowdfunding for Life Sciences: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters?” May 12 2014 Embassy Suites Hotel, Chesterbrook PA 6:00-9:30 PM

CRISPR-Cas9 Discovery and Development of Programmable Genome Engineering – Gabbay Award Lectures in Biotechnology and Medicine – Hosted by Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, 10/27/14 3:30PM Brandeis University, Gerstenzang 121

Tweeting on 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/press-coverage/

Statistical Analysis of Tweet Feeds from the 14th ANNUAL BIOTECH IN EUROPE FORUM For Global Partnering & Investment 9/30 – 10/1/2014 • Congress Center Basel – SACHS Associates, London

1st Pitch Life Science- Philadelphia- What VCs Really Think of your Pitch

What VCs Think about Your Pitch? Panel Summary of 1st Pitch Life Science Philly

How Social Media, Mobile Are Playing a Bigger Part in Healthcare

Can Mobile Health Apps Improve Oral-Chemotherapy Adherence? The Benefit of Gamification.

Medical Applications and FDA regulation of Sensor-enabled Mobile Devices: Apple and the Digital Health Devices Market

E-Medical Records Get A Mobile, Open-Sourced Overhaul By White House Health Design Challenge Winners

Read Full Post »

PCCI’s 7th Annual Roundtable “Crowdfunding for Life Sciences: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters?” May 12 2014 Embassy Suites Hotel, Chesterbrook PA 6:00-9:30 PM

Posted in Curation, Curation methodology, Disease Biology, Small Molecules in Development of Therapeutic Drugs, Drug Delivery Platform Technology, Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Health Law & Patient Safety, HealthCare IT, Intellectual Property, Innovations, Commercialization, Investment in technological breakthrough, Interviews with Scientific Leaders, Medical Devices R&D Investment, Pharmaceutical Industry Competitive Intelligence, Scientific & Biotech Conferences: Press Coverage, tagged Aviva Lev-Ari, Content Curation, crowd-funding, crowdsourcing, Curation methodology, pharmaceutical consultation, Pharmaceutical industry, science funding, Social media, Social network on April 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

PCCI’s 7th Annual Roundtable “Crowdfunding for Life Sciences: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters?”

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

http://www.rxpcci.com/meetings.htm

Monday, May 12 2014 Embassy Suites Hotel, Chesterbrook PA 6:00 -9:30 PM

Pharmaceutical Consulting Consortium International Inc. presents their 7^th annual Roundtable on Crowdfunding for the Life Sciences and how this funding mechanism applies to early stage life science companies and changes the funding landscape. The conference will examine the types of crowdfunding out there and attempts to answer many questions including:

Which one is right for which new companies at which stage of the funding process?
And how will choosing the right or wrong one influence follow-on funders and funding rounds?
Will the advent of crowdfunding speed up the investment process?
Will it really bridge the yawning “valley of death”?

The panel is made up of notables and practitioners who will be called upon to deal with the pros and cons of crowdfunding in real life and let them discuss how all this is likely to apply to life science entrepreneurs and investors.

The panel includes:

Mark Roderick, Attorney Flaster/Greenberg PC (Moderator)
Valerie Gaydos, President, Capital Growth (represents angel/venture community)
Samuel Wertheimer, Chief Investment Officer, Poliwogg Darrick Mix
Duane Morris, LLP (journalist who covers crowdfunding

Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence had recently launched a new, real-time based methodology for meeting coverage using social media as a platform to foster discussion and commentary.

This methodology is described in the following post REAL TIME Cancer Conference Coverage: A Novel Methodology for Authentic Reporting on Presentations and Discussions launched via Twitter.com @ The 2nd ANNUAL Sachs Cancer Bio Partnering & Investment Forum in Drug Development, 19th March 2014 • New York Academy of Sciences • USA

This new method was successfully used and curated at the 2^nd Annual Sachs Cancer Bio Partnering &Investment Forum at the New York Academy of Sciences and will be featured at the forthcoming Sachs Global Conferences in 2014 and 2015.

Related articles on this site include: