http://biotechbistro.com/forum/topic/new-online-network-lets-life-scientists-around-the-world-share-scientific-resear The Business of Biotechnology en-US Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:56:33 +0000 bbpress 1.0-alpha-4 q http://biotechbistro.com/forum/search.php http://biotechbistro.com/forum/topic/new-online-network-lets-life-scientists-around-the-world-share-scientific-resear#post-5 Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:23:45 +0000 Anonymous 5@http://biotechbistro.com/forum/ <p>Epernicus.com is a new online network that is enabling health and life scientists from around the world to share scientific research.</p> <p>Epernicus has already enabled 9,457 of life scientists at 1,825 institutions in 67 countries to find other researchers with specific skill sets, averting the time-consuming, labor intensive processes of tracking down scientists who have information that they need. In the past three months, it has grown from 5,183 scientists at 1,200 institutions in 57 countries.</p> <p>A scientist could be researching global warming, stem cells, a cure for cancer, the aging process, dinosaurs, biofuels or food microbiology. According to the National Science Foundation, there were 274,200 scientists and engineers with doctorates in U.S. academia in 2006 and 4.8 million total people currently in the science and engineering labor force. Epernicus is already the leading science-focused professional network among scientists at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco among others. It is also being used by scientists at the National Institutes for Health and at such leading biotech companies as Genentech, Novartis and Pfizer.</p> <p>"Think of us as a Facebook or LinkedIn for scientists but with a concrete purpose," said Mikhail Shapiro, PhD, co-Founder of Epernicus, headquartered in Cambridge, MA. "We help scientists realize just how much knowledge their colleagues have that can be tapped to accelerate their research."</p> <p>"About 90% of what scientific researchers do and know can be shared with others without affecting their competitive position. We’re not talking about posting cutting edge research before it’s published in a reputable journal," said Shapiro.</p> <p>According to Krystyn Van Vliet, the Thomas Lord Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering at MIT, "My entire research group is already on Epernicus, and we’ve been using it to start collaborations. Even for colleagues we already knew, we weren’t aware that they had certain skills or reagents. We say, 'Wow, we didn’t know they were working on that.'"</p> <p>Johannes Huebner MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at University Hospital in Freiburg, Germany, had this to say: "Epernicus has been really great for me to get in touch with former colleagues. In the future, we are planning to use it more extensively for writing international collaborative research proposals, something that is becoming more important due to the funding mechanisms of the European Union. The opportunity to post documents and the detailed description of areas of expertise of the individual participants are extremely useful."</p> <p>Epernicus combines specialized professional networking utility with a people-centric search engine to help scientists locate colleagues with specific expertise in their real-world professional networks. Once a scientist joins - with email address verification - he/she is automatically connected with all other members at his/her laboratory, department and institution as well as researchers who shared a common research advisor in the past. Members profiles include detailed information about their training history, advising genealogy, publications and specific topics, materials and methods in which they have expertise. Features like a hook-up to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed archive make it easy for scientists to complete their profiles. All data is-user provided, not culled from the web, ensuring accuracy of each user's information. These details are then used by Epernicus' search engine to show users who among their colleagues is likely to have a particular expertise.</p> <p>"Epernicus can tell me who in my department has worked with stem cells and could show me how to extract their RNA for analysis," Shapiro said.</p> <p>Conversely, Epernicus members can broadcast a question to their scientific networks. A Brigham and Women's Hospital faculty member asked hospital colleagues and fellow alumni from his post-doctoral advisor's laboratory for advice on modifying the activity of an antibody, while an MIT student was looking for a fluorescent plate reader to use while his was broken.</p> <p>Epernicus as founded by Shapiro, PhD, co-founder of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, Inc., and Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, attending physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, instructor at Harvard Medical School, and co-founder of VISIONS, a non-profit focused on HIV/AIDS youth education. </p>