SDBN Blog

During our May 28th Social Media for Scientists (SMS) SDBN event, William Gunn talked about friendfeed as a useful tool for discussing science and learning. We polled the attendees before the event and found that they knew almost nothing about it, and had little interest in learning about it. We set up a friendfeed room for the group and frankly have not had much adoption.

So, what’s so great about friendfeed, why do we keep talking about it? Friendfeed aggregates all of your activity on social media, so that when you post anything on twitter, your blog, Flickr, etc. (58 social media applications are available), all of your connections there see it. Now, think of this used with a scientific ‘persona,’ if you will. You can share interesting articles, blog posts, presentations–some people even post data on Flickr–with your colleagues. Every post can be commented on, leading to interesting discussions. See this example of how friendfeed was used to stimulate and manage discussions regarding the conference, and the interest was so high that posts were thought to be spam!

Friendfeed takes it one step further, allowing you to form and join groups which focus on topics (see table below). You can benefit from group members’ posts, ask questions of the group, and take part in the discussions from any post. Scientists have been using the web to interact via forums and mailing list for a long time (we even discussed friendfeed vs. these older ways of communicating there). While someone pointed out that there is ‘nothing wrong with the old forums and mailing lists’ and that ‘you can post longer items using the old methods’ I see real value in the ‘2.0′ forms of communicating such as friendfeed. With these types of social media, as with media such as twitter, often people post interesting observations that lead to unexpected comments and new directions–there is a level of serendipitous discovery that occurs. Also, because the groups are full of like-minded people, there is not much noise, and even discussions that are tangential to your work can be interesting. As William Gunn pointed out in our SMS presentation, you can also search all posts and comments from your friends or groups, leading to one of the most targeted web searches available (bing, eat your heart out).

One thing that I find incredibly interesting is that these groups can also become commentaries on larger issues. See the References Wanted group below–it is a repository for articles that scientists cannot access freely, and thus a commentary on the need for more open access science, paradigms that journals such as PLoS subscribe to. In addition, you’ll find that the scientists on friendfeed are keen to learn about new tools–see the Evernote Addicts group, a group dedicated to software for aggregating information that scientists (and others) find very useful. As with other types of social media, it is not clear what the lifetime of friendfeed’s relevancy will be, but you can be sure that the people here will be ahead of the curve in knowing what the ‘next big thing’ for scientists will be, even if it means moving away from friendfeed or being a ‘force’ to help change it.

As with other social media, the best way to learn is to try it yourself. I suggest signing up and subscribing to the groups below, getting email updates for convenience at first. We realize that some of you are still hesitant to join, and that’s OK. It turns out that Facebook and friendfeed have a lot of similarities, as a fan page can be set up for a group of people, and items can be posted on and discussed among members. We set up a SDBN fan page for this purpose, become a fan and start posting and interacting! We hope that it will give you a ‘taste’ of ’serendipitous scientific social media’ and that you’ll be inspired to participate in tools such as friendfeed. We’ll also continue to help you learn more about the tools for science in social media through blog posts and events. As we mentioned at the SMS event, participating in social media gives you a way to get a ‘leg up’ from your colleagues in real time, and we think that once you start experiencing it, you’ll be as hooked as we are!

P.S. On friendfeed there is even a discussion on this post!

Friendfeed Groups for Life Scientists: Some Examples

Don’t see a group that interests you? Search the friendfeed groups for your research area or anything you’re interested in, or start your own!

Posted by Mary Canady of Comprendia, which helps life scientists and the industry improve communication through social media and marketing strategies. Special thanks to Sally Church of Icarus Consultants & PharmaStrategyBlog for helping with the list of groups, and to the friendfeed life scientists group, who let this ‘marketer in scientist clothing’ participate in the group. Also thanks to William Gunn, for help and convincing me to persist with friendfeed even though I didn’t ‘get it’ at first.

Here are the results of the poll we took of attendees before the May 28th Social Media for Scientists SDBN Event. The presentation should be self-explanatory, contact us if you have any questions!

I recently looked over a company presentation for a friend and noticed something that I see a lot from scientists: she was being too modest in stating her reputation and abilities. When I pointed it out, it seemed as though I was suggesting that she should brag, a fate worse than death it appeared. Now, we all knew the jerk in grad school who acted like s/he can and did do everything, winning the favor of the advisor and not giving credit to others in the lab. I am not suggesting that scientists should overstate their abilities, but rather, be more confident and clearly communicate their skills and how they can benefit others.

I see this change in attitude being beneficial at many levels. On a personal level, scientists should think about what they’re good at early and often, and how to communicate it (also, if distinguishing talents don’t emerge, that needs to be worked on as well!). This is good for a scientist in developing his or her scientific progress as well as landing a job that fits well and positions them for maximum growth. See Comprendia’s Biotechnology Marketing 101: You First presentation for more hints on finding and communicating your ‘value proposition.’

Additionally, I see biotechnology as a whole benefiting from more confident, self-realized scientists. If companies find it easy to identify qualified candidates, either because they clearly post their abilities on LinkedIn or give great interviews, they save time and end up with employees who are a great fit and can communicate well. I also see scientists at companies being too modest at all levels, it doesn’t always ‘go away’ when a scientist leaves academia or reaches upper management. See Comprendia’s Biotechnology Marketing 101: Your Company for more details on clearly defining and communicating the value proposition of your company. Your business, science, and employees will all benefit when it is clear what your company excels at.

Who benefits when scientists are too modest? I can’t think of anyone. As long as you give credit where credit is due, and help others, you should realize that knowing and communicating your talents is the best way to advance the field. If you’re worried that you’re exaggerating, by all means ask for advice from some colleagues. Any fears about appearing too arrogant will likely be allayed by people who know you or your company, and they may even tell you that you’re still understating your abilities!

I sometimes feel as though I’m on the ‘other side’ of science since I concentrate on marketing, but I think I’ve got a good perspective on the importance of communication for success in biotechnology and life sciences. Success by any one of us means more success for all of us. Remember that many younger scientists are benefiting and learning from your science and your achievements–why understate them? As life scientists, we don’t have a Hippocratic Oath regarding our responsibilities to society, but maybe we should. Feel free to leave your ideas for one below!

At the recent Social Media for Scientists Event, we talked about the fact that the trends you are seeing in ‘everyday life’ such as increased utilization of the internet to communicate, are also finding their way into scientific research. This is also true for the ‘YouTube’ revolution–there are an increasing number of video sites and resources for scientists. They range from visualized experiments, to reviews of current research and events, to wacky and fun ‘kitchen science’ such as the nerdiest ways to slice butter.

The resources range from dedicated sites and communities to simple YouTube playlists (see also this resource which lists independent resources with an emphasis on medicine). UCSD/SDSC’s Phil Bourne has started SciVee, which is a website dedicated to “changing the pace at which science is conducted and communicated.” You can participate by joining the independent sites and/or creating an account in YouTube and subscribing to the channels. Also, as with all social media, you’ll get the most out of it by participating directly. You can create your own playlists or even create your own videos–small video cameras are inexpensive and take great videos. Also, we’d LOVE to see your videos of local events, and we’ll feature them here and on YouTube. As always, we welcome your comments/additions!

Special thanks to the folks at the friendfeed Life Scientists group for helping me compile this list, especially @BoraZ. Here is the original post, it illustrates the power of friendfeed!

Posted by Brian Orelli

Illumina has decided that selling picks and shovels isn’t enough; it’s going for the gold too. Last week the San Diego-based company announced that it’ll be offering a complete genome sequencing service — using its sequencers of course.

The good news is that you’ll be able to get your genome sequenced for half the cost of Illumina’s closest competitor. The bad news is that you’ll still have to shell out $48,000 for the 30X coverage of the 90% of your genome that’s unique enough to be sequenced with the company’s paired-end short-read technology.

To put that in perspective, for that amount you could:

Still, getting in now is probably a smart move for Illumina. The price of sequencing is bound to get down to a price that most people can afford it. Working out the kinks — and getting the rich early-adopters to pay for it — is preferable to waiting until there’s a substantial market for the product.

As for San Diego, the announcement likely means a few new jobs for the region as we’re home to Illumina’s new CLIA-certified laboratory. For now the company is sticking with the grunt work and plans to let 23andMe, Navigenics, Decode Genetics, and Knome do the fun part of interpreting what the genetic variations might mean for the patient.

That might be a short-sighted move as Daniel MacArthur of Genetic Future points out. Sequencing could become a low-margin business if competition becomes tight when next-next-generation sequencers become available. Concentrating on hocking the higher-margin sequencers and/or developing a system for interpreting the data might be a better move.

Only time will tell if Illumina has hit gold or pyrite.

Brian Orelli is a freelance analyst/writer based in San Diego. You can find his take on the healthcare industry at places such as The Motley Fool and Nature Biotechnology. You can follow him on twitter @BiologyFool or reach him by e-mail at Brian.Orelli at gmail.com

The San Diego Biotechnology Network is pleased to feature Fate Therapeutics and Stemgent at our July 21st networking event. These two companies represent exciting, interdisciplinary biotechnology research being done in San Diego that holds direct promise for making a difference in our quality of life. The event will feature a short talk followed by networking with the speakers and scientists from the two companies. As usual, we hope that the casual atmosphere at our venue, Tango del Rey, will stimulate discussions and meaningful interactions for all in attendance. We also encourage you to utilize the online tools available to communicate before, during, and after the event.

CATALYST: The Industrialization of Advanced iPSC Technology for Drug Discovery & Development

Dan Shoemaker, Ph.D., CTO (Fate), Stephen Chang, Ph.D., CSO (Stemgent) will present a short talk describing CATALYST:

About Fate Therapeutics, Inc.

Fate Therapeutics is interrogating adult stem cell biology and applying induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to develop Stem Cell Modulators (SCMs), small molecule or biologic compounds that guide cell fate for therapeutic purposes. Fate’s approach has broad therapeutic potential in areas such as regenerative medicine, hematological diseases, metastatic cancer, traumatic injury and degenerative diseases. In addition, Fate Therapeutics and Stemgent have formed an alliance – Catalyst – a collaborative program to provide Catalyst Members with first access to the most advanced iPSC technologies for drug discovery and development. Fate Therapeutics is headquartered in La Jolla, CA. For more information, please visit http://www.fatetherapeutics.com.

About Stemgent

Stemgent helps our customers advance stem cell science by providing proprietary reagents and technologies developed by some of the world’s leading stem cell scientists. Stemgent’s product offering includes virus-delivered reprogramming factors for iPS cell generation, cytokines and matrices for healthy stem cell growth, primary and reporter cell lines, stem cell characterization tools, polymers for transfection, and small molecules for reprogramming, self-renewal and differentiation. This unique product mix is designed to serve researchers who study stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, and those who use cells derived from stem cells to advance their understanding of major diseases. For more information visit us at www.stemgent.com.

Event Details

Who: Biotechnology professionals in the greater San Diego area
What: San Diego Biotechnology Network’s July Networking Event Featuring Fate Therapeutics and Stemgent
When: Tuesday, July 21st, 5:30-9:00 p.m.
Where: Tango Del Rey, 3567 Del Rey Street, San Diego 92109 (Directions below)
Cost: $20, including appetizers ($15 for Academics) +$5 at door
Contact: http://sdbn.org/contact
For more information about the event: http://sdbn.org/july

Directions: From the North: South on Interstate 5, Exit Balboa Ave, Straight to 4th Traffic Light then left on Bunker Hill St. Building directly ahead 3 blks. From the South: North on Interstate 5, Exit Grand/ Garnet Ave, Straight to 3rd Traffic Light then right on Bunker Hill St. Building directly ahead 3 blks.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in our event last week! It was a ‘first’ for many things and I’m proud to announce that with your help we pulled almost everything off. We didn’t get a full video of the event, but re-recorded the audio and posted it on Slideshare (also embedded above).
Thanks also to Proven Scientific for sponsoring, and to volunteers John Cox, Cathy Yarbrough, Richard Ludwig, Caron Golden, Julie Wright, Steve Ohrmund, and Luigi (Lou) Schioppi. William Gunn is truly a rock star and you’ll be hearing more from him with the SDBN in the future. As we mentioned, we’ve created a friendfeed room to help you start getting involved in social media, please join. In addition, we also ‘took to heart’ the fact that many of you are already on Facebook, so we created a new fan page, check it out! Let’s see what works best, that’s what it’s all about!
We don’t have our next event scheduled, but it will likely be mid July. Stay tuned and connected to the SDBN channel!

THANKS to everyone for last night’s Social Media for Scientists event! I’ll post more info soon, but if you’re logging on looking for the ‘preso’ it can be found here: http://sdbn.org/smpreso

Join the friendfeed group too! http://friendfeed.com/sdbn

More soon…

Mary

I attended the ‘Mastering Your (Cell) Fate: Stem Cells, iPSCs and the Future of Medicine’ session at BIO on Monday, which featured a panel of specialists: G. Steven Burrill, CEO, Burrill & Company, Aaron Rowe, Reporter, Wired News, Paul Grayson, CEO, Fate Therapeutics, Ian Ratcliffe, CEO, Stemgent, and Richard Gregory, Senior VP Head of Research, Genzyme. Members of the audience included biotech professionals, media, and even some patients who were eager to hear about the progress of iPSC therapies. iPSCs are ‘induced Pluripotent Stem Cells’ which are mature adult cells which have been ‘reprogrammed,’ in contrast to embryonic stem cells (for a full description see Stem Cells 101 on Fate Therapeutics’ website).
The panel discussed the fact that although stem cell research is gaining a lot of attention recently, therapies involving cell treatments have been around for years, bone marrow transplants as a prime example. Nevertheless, Burrill pointed out that venture capital is still mostly on the sidelines when it comes to stem cell funding. Reasons? Burrill said that a big issue is the perceived risk of getting stem cell therapies through the FDA along with the fact that startup companies are often preoccupied with the science and don’t develop a viable business model early. Someone in the audience commented that the challenges facing stem cell companies currently may be similar to those faced by other non-small molecule therapies such as Biologics, which didn’t ‘take off’ until a blockbuster drug hit the market. The panel consensus was that most of the research is actually being done in academia, with Stemgent’s Ratcliffe commenting that most of their customers come from this sector.
After the session, I spoke with Fate Therapeutics CEO Paul Grayson, and we discussed their unique strategies for overcoming these perceived challenges. Fate received generous VC funding early from ARCH, Polaris, and Venrock, likely due to the fact that their founders and management are a veritable ‘who’s who’ in stem cell research and technologies. In addition, they maintain close ties with academic institutions such as Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Stanford University, University of Washington and the Whitehead Institute. Fate continues to ‘think outside of the box’ when it comes to creating a workable business model, and has recently partnered with Stemgent, also based in San Diego, to create an unprecedented interdisciplinary agreement called ‘Catalyst‘ which represents a new paradigm in which pharma, early stage biotech, and academia will work together to create the research tools which will be directly used to develop therapeutics. In exchange for annual funding from pharmaceutical companies (Grayson says they are targeting up to 5 companies for a total of $50M), Fate and Stemgent will create tools which will be accessible only to member companies. Dr. Sheng Ding, founder of both Fate and Stemgent, is an Associate Professor at TSRI, bringing cutting edge research from academia to the collaboration.
Grayson says that the Catalyst collaboration has been helped by the translational medicine movement, in which academic scientists focus on the applicability of their research to public needs. In the BIO iPSC Panel, it was estimated that around 100 stem cell companies currently exist, and Grayson estimates that only 20 will be still standing after two years. With the looming uncertainties in risk and regulatory issues, it may be likely that such interdisciplinary collaborations will be needed to help stem cell companies and technologies to succeed.
On a regional note, I’m working on featuring Fate at one of our upcoming San Diego Biotechnology Network events, as they are exemplary of our vision to bring different sectors and disciplines together to stimulate growth in our region as well as in biotechnology in general. Stay tuned!

You may know I’m a blogger at the Biotechnology Industry Organization convention in Atlanta. I’m here and adjusting to the time change. I’m eager to cover stories about San Diego Biotech–we’ve got a lot going on here! Today Paul Grayson, CEO of Fate Therapeutics, and Ian Ratcliffe, CEO of Stemgent, will be speaking in the ‘Mastering Your (Cell) Fate: Stem Cells, iPSCs and the Future of Medicine’ session.’ Check out the BIO blog for the latest. I hope to speak with them, stay tuned! It’s raining off and on here, but I always forget how nice it is to see lots of trees.