Citizen scientists invited to speed up medical discovery
This blog post was authored by me, and first posted on CitSciBio.org.
If you were given a chance to improve health evidence, fight Alzheimer’s and uncover hidden clues in rare disease research - all from the comfort of your home - would you dare to say no?
Well, you are invited to do just that next week, in an online challenge organized by three citizen science platforms: Stall Catchers, Mark2Cure and Cochrane Crowd. CitSciMed Blitz - the first of its kind - will take place from 3pm GMT on Monday, February 26, and last until 3pm, March 3. Everyone can participate - no experience necessary, just a desire to help.
CitSciMed Blitz will be a joint competition consisting of three separate challenges:
The Stall Catchers challenge begins at 3pm GMT, February 26, and will last for 24 hours. Stall Catchers is an online citizen science game speeding up Alzheimer's research. Participants analyze movies from the brains of mice and look for stalled vessels. Check out this 30 second video to learn more, or head straight to the game to get acquainted. You will receive some training to help you get started. Try to analyze as many movies as you can on Monday!
The Mark2Cure challenge begins at 3pm GMT, February 28, and will last for 24 hours. Mark2Cure is a citizen science platform dealing with a rare disease known as NGLY1-deficiency. Volunteers extract information from biomedical abstracts in order to help researchers find clues in the literature. You can join the project right now, and be sure to show up when the challenge begins!
The Cochrane Crowd challenge begins at 3pm GMT, March 2, and will last for 24 hours. Cochrane Crowd is a citizen science project with the main focus on identifying studies that provide the best possible evidence of the effectiveness of a health treatment. The more studies identified by the Crowd, the more high-quality evidence is available to help health practitioners treat their clients. Watch this 2-minute video to learn more, and sign up to get started!
You can choose to participate in one or all three challenges of the Blitz. All you need to do is sign up on each separate platform, show up on each designated day and try to contribute as much as you can before the time runs out!
Three winners - one from each platform - will receive special citizen science trophies, custom built @technariumas! ONE contributor who scores highest across all three platforms will receive a triple Stall Catchers + Mark2Cure + Cochrane Crowd trophy! Each platform will also reward their top contributors separately.
Most importantly - this is YOUR chance to speed up medical discovery! If you can read this, you can help!
Learn more about the challenge in this recorded webinar. You can also follow the latest news about the event on Facebook.