HealthMash: Health Knowledge Base and Semantic Search Engine October 9, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medical Search, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.1 comment so far
HealthMash, a promising new search engine was just launched and now it is in beta version so the developer team would like to get some feedback. An excerpt from their mission statement:
Our mission is to promote health and well being in the world by providing personally relevant information from trusted health sites on the Web.HealthMash™ is powered by the world’s most sophisticated Health Knowledge Base that captures the expertise of medical professionals and people everywhere practicing the art of living and healing and the Wisdom of the Ages.HealthMash™ combines sophisticated Web 2.0 universal search and discovery technology with Semantic Web Concepts in a simple yet highly informative user interface.
When you do a search for a specific topic, it will help you with different clusters of relevant topics and related concepts. It also shows relevant images and videos as well as drugs, news, articles, books and clinical trials.
Conferences about Web 2.0 and Medicine: The Big Three October 9, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Conference, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0.1 comment so far
I thought I would list here the best conferences that focus on the interaction between web 2.0 and health or medicine. If you know more quality events, please do share.
- Health 2.0 (San Francisco, US and Paris)
- Medicine 2.0 Congress (Toronto)
- E-Patient Connections Conference (Philadelphia)
Personalized Genetics in the News: 3D Structure and Bar Code Reader October 9, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Genetic testing, genetics, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Personalized medicine, Video, Web 2.0.add a comment
The researchers report two striking findings. First, the human genome is organized into two separate compartments, keeping active genes separate and accessible while sequestering unused DNA in a denser storage compartment.
Second, at a finer scale, the genome adopts an unusual organization known in mathematics as a “fractal.” The specific architecture the scientists found, called a “fractal globule,” enables the cell to pack DNA incredibly tightly – the information density in the nucleus is trillions of times higher than on a computer chip — while avoiding the knots and tangles that might interfere with the cell’s ability to read its own genome. Moreover, the DNA can easily unfold and refold during gene activation, gene repression, and cell replication.
The DNA Transistor is a project from IBM Research that aims to advance personalized medicine, by making it simpler (and much cheaper) to read an individual’s unique DNA sequence — the special combination of proteins that makes you unlike anyone else.
A group of doctors training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center started a unique program last week to learn about genetic tests marketed to consumers, placing them in the vanguard of preparations to guide patients through the dawning Wild West age of personalized medicine.
Part of the instruction will come from having the young physicians test their own DNA in search of genes linked to various illnesses.
Scienceroll.com: Weekly Introduction October 6, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine.1 comment so far
I would like to share my favourite and ongoing projects with you so I can give you a proper introduction to Scienceroll.com. You can also find me on Twitter or on Friendfeed.
Medicine 2.0 University Course: This is the third semester of the first university course that focuses on web 2.0 and medicine for medical students. Now, almost 100 students attend the 20 slideshows through 10 weeks and they fill a survey out before and after the course.
Medicine 2.0 Collection: I maintain the biggest collection of links and posts focusing on web 2.0 and medicine.
Webicina.com is my service that aims to help medical professionals and patients enter the web 2.0 era by providing them with e-courses, consulting and personalized packages.
PeRSSonalized Medicine is a free tool that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles in one personalized place. You can create your own “medical journal” and as we are totally open to suggestions, let us add the journals, blogs and websites that you would like to follow.
Scienceroll Search is a personalized medical search engine powered by PolyMeta search and clustering engine. You can choose which databases to search in and which one to exclude from your list. It works with well-known medical search engines and databases and we’re totally open to add new ones or remove those you don’t really like.
Medicine and Web 2.0 Microvarnival: The blog carnival focusing on web 2.0 and medicine. Let me know if you have a submission or if you want to host an edition.
Gene Genie is the blog carnival of genes, personalized genomics and gene-related diseases. Our plan is to cover the whole genome before 2082 (it means 14-15 genes every two weeks). Let me know if you have a submission or if you want to host an edition.
List of biomedical and scientific community sites: More than 30 communities with links, descriptions and screenshots.
List of Biomedical video sites: Almost 40 sites featuring scientific or medical videos and videocasts.
AcaWiki: Democratization of Academic Knowledge October 5, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in science, Web 2.0, Wiki.add a comment
I’ve reently come across AcaWiki, an interesting project focusing on academic research and web 2.0.
Today, representatives from the new nonprofit project AcaWiki announced the opening of their website to the public. AcaWiki’s semantic-wiki based website allows scholars, students, and bloggers to easily post summaries, and discuss academic papers online. All content posted to the site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
AcaWiki’s mission is to make academic research more accessible and interactive by creating a “Wikipedia for academic research.” “Cutting-edge research is often locked behind firewalls and therefore lacks impact,” founder Neeru Paharia explains, “AcaWiki turns research hidden in academic journals into something that is more dynamic and accessible to have a greater influence in scholarship, and society.” AcaWiki enables users to easily post and discuss human-readable summaries of academic papers and literature reviews online. AcaWiki also helps users to share and organize summaries through the use of tags and RSS feeds.
PeRSSonalized Genetics: Follow Quality News and Resources October 4, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in genetics, Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, PeRSSonalized Medicine, Web 2.0, Webicina.add a comment
I launched PeRSSonalized Medicine to help patients and doctors keep themselves up-to-date more easily, without any kind of IT knowledge. It is an easy-to-use, free aggregator of quality medical information that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles about a medical specialty or a medical condition in one personalized place.
Now here is the newest category, PeRSSonalized Genetics with all the quality news sites, blogs, peer-reviewed journals and web 2.0 tools focusing on genetics and genomics.
Some reasons why it is unique:
- You can search in the database. It means you will find medical information only from a quality selected portion of the world wide web.
- You can personalize any of the sections.
- You can also receive the newest Pubmed articles focusing on your search term. Just insert your field of interest, a therapy, a condition, etc. and click Search. Then you can add the newly created box to your personalized medical “journal”.
- It is a community-based project. Please let us know which quality resources should be added to the database.
Ethical, Legal, Social Issues in Genetics October 4, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in genetics, Personalized medicine, Web 2.0.add a comment
Dan Vorhaus has recently written about a great initiative launched by Genomics Law Report.
On Monday the Genomics Law Report will debut a series of guest commentaries by industry, academic and thought leaders in the fields of genomics and personalized medicine. The series is modeled on the Nature Genetics 2007 Question of the Year (“What would you do if it became possible to sequence the equivalent of a full human genome for only $1,000?”) with a slight modification.
Entitled What ELSI is New?, the series will feature commentators responding to the following question: “What do you believe is the most important ethical, legal or social issue (ELSI) that must be addressed by the fields of genomics and/or personalized medicine?” The purpose of the series is to identify a wide range of ethical, legal and social issues that must be addressed to fully realize the promise of genomics and personalized medicine.
I’m truly honored to be included in this prestigious list and I will focus on the possible impact of web 2.0 on personalized medicine in my commentary.
Trendsmap in Medicine= Google Maps + Twitter Trends October 4, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Video, Visualization, Web 2.0.add a comment
A few months ago, I shared many interesting resources that help how the recent H1N1 outbreak can be followed online but have you ever thought about tracking diseases through an interactive map by using the information uploaded by people from around the world? Here is Trendsmap, the combination of Google Maps and Twitter trends.
I did a sample search for H1N1:
PeRSSonalized Medicine: The Best German Resources October 2, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, PeRSSonalized Medicine, RSS, Web 2.0, Webicina.3 comments
I launched PeRSSonalized Medicine to help patients and doctors keep themselves up-to-date more easily, without any kind of IT knowledge. It is an easy-to-use, free medical information aggregator that lets you select your favourite resources and read the latest news and articles about a medical specialty or a medical condition in one personalized place. We already have national versions:
And now the German version is launched! It does not only mean the platform is German, but the resources are also the best ones in that language. We will publish French, Polish and Italian collections as well soon. Please let us know if you want to see PeRSSonalized Medicine in your language.
Many thanks to Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schrader (Twitter) from Frankfurt am Main – University of Applied Sciences who helped a lot with the translation and the selection of quality German resources.
Some reasons why PeRSSonalized Medicine is unique:
- You can search in the database. It means you will find medical information only from a quality selected portion of the world wide web.
- You can personalize any of the sections.
- You can also receive the newest Pubmed articles focusing on your search term. Just insert your field of interest, a therapy, a condition, etc. and click Search. Then you can add the newly created box to your personalized medical “journal”.
- It is a community-based project. Please let us know which quality resources should be added to the database.
Young Scientists on Video October 1, 2009
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in science, Video.add a comment
This video has been generated during a course for young scientists that has been held in Siena in April 2009: “Scientific communication to general public: different languages, different media, but only one clear message”.
