Science 2.0
I've been reading various science-related blogs for a while now, and I haven't noticed much discussion about the future of biomedical research. What will the research enterprise look like in the next 100 years? What new technologies will revolutionize research?
Because of this I have decided to start my own blog to discuss the future of biomedical research, with special emphasis on technology. I'm hoping this will foster discussion and novel ideas about how to improve the research enterprise. With this in mind, I would happily welcome guest bloggers to contribute. If you have ideas or opinions that you would like to share, please contact me.
I would like to start with a discussion about the Internet. Since starting the JeffsBench.com website I have become much more aware of how scientists use the Internet and how scientists communicate with each other. The Internet is an incredibly powerful communication tool. However, scientists have not taken advantage of this power to improve communication with each other. Most scientists still communicate by publishing journal articles, giving presentations, and talking face-to-face. For most tenure professors who are able to travel to meetings and talk with their colleagues these antiquated forms of communication are sufficient. However, most students and post-docs are not able to frequently travel to meetings and are hindered by the lack of communication with colleagues. The Internet has the power to revolutionize the way students and post-docs communicate with each other. This communication is most important because the students and post-docs are the ones getting their hands wet doing the research. They are the ones who have the expertise to help each other and the ability to put it into practice.
I believe that communication between scientists needs to have a revolution similar to the Web 2.0 revolution, and I think we should call it Science 2.0. Science 2.0 has the potential to completely change research as we know it. I'm not going to shock you with all of my ideas at once, but as a teaser it could change publications, peer-review, mentoring, funding, and much more.
To get back to the communication issue, Web 2.0 is all about the power of the masses. Sites like MySpace and Facebook have changed the way college students communicate. Sites like Slashdot and Digg have changed the way people share news with each other. Blogs have completely changed the way politicians campaign. These types of sites that change the way we communicate are prevalent, except within biomedical research. PubMed is a wonderful resource that is irreplaceable. However, searching PubMed is tedious, especially in active fields. I study the tumor suppressor protein p53, which has over 42,000 publications in PubMed. There have been about 3,500 publications in the last year, that's nearly 10 papers every day. Wouldn't it be useful if there was a website, like Digg, where researchers in the p53 field could rate and review papers on p53? Which review does the field believe is the most comprehensive? Is that new Nature paper really a major advance, or did it get into Nature only because they looked in stem cells? I don't mean to plug my own site, but JeffsBench is one of the first sites designed to give scientists the ability to rate and review papers.
The Internet is a great tool to harness the collective power of the students and post-docs for the improvement of research as we know it. I'll add more of my ideas in upcoming posts. Please respond with your ideas as well.