Charity creates world's first citizen science project to speed up cancer research

Public Archive
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This is interesting was wondering what everybody else thinks about it,
cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/news/archive/pressrelease/2012-10-23-worlds-first-citizen-science?view=rss
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Cancer Research UK has launched the first ever interactive website -www.clicktocure.net - that will allow the public to delve into real-life cancer data from research archives and speed up lifesaving research, outside of the laboratory.
At the moment, cancer samples are given special stains that highlight certain molecules as part of research. These molecules could reveal how a patient will respond to treatment. But this process is slow and analysis is mostly done by trained pathologists, who are often also cancer researchers.
The new website – Cell SliderTM – is the first time real cancer data has been turned into a format that can be analysed by the public. By getting as many people as possible to take part, more samples will be analysed faster and more effectively, freeing up scientists to carry out other cancer research."
Linda x

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Bump!

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Linda, I am copying a section below of the article that explains how the public will be involved. I think the principle is that many hands make light work. Hopefully by gettting the public to unearth various aspects of the data, this will speed up results. Hopefully they will have enough staff in place to process the information unearthed.
"real images of tumour samples will be presented to the world for analysis in the form of a simple game of snap. Users will be guided through a tutorial that explains which cells to analyse and which ones to ignore.
Once cancer cells have been spotted by their irregular shape, users will be asked to record how many have been stained yellow and how bright that yellow is by simply clicking on another image that closely matches the sample they are viewing.
This information will be fed back to researchers who will look for trends between types of cells and a patient’s response to treatment.
Initially, the game will use breast cancer samples. The yellow stain will indicate levels of a protein found in cancer cells called the oestrogen receptor (ER).

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Thanks Lemongrove, anyone had a go at this yet? wonder how sucessfull it will be in helping.
Linda