1 / 20

Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS)

Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS). “Scaling up” academic science. Collaboratory types. Distributed research center Large-scale, high-throughput academic/ industry hybrid Community data system Unique model for motivating and coordinating community contributions. History.

berke
Download Presentation

Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS)

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Alliance for Cellular Signaling(AfCS) “Scaling up” academic science

  2. Collaboratory types • Distributed research center • Large-scale, high-throughput academic/ industry hybrid • Community data system • Unique model for motivating and coordinating community contributions

  3. History • Success of human genome project • NIH budget increase led to “Glue Grant” idea- scaling up science • AfCS was the first glue grant, several others have followed

  4. History • Al Gilman organized two meetings of signalling community at UTSW • Meeting #1: ~12 people from UTSW • Meeting #2 ~ 30 people • Funded started in 2000

  5. Scientific problem • AfCS is an attempt to account for all signalling activity in a few model cells

  6. Scientific problem • There are ~3,000 molecules that are potential ‘signals’ in a cell • Interactions are complex and poorly understood • “How do cells hear and interpret one voice when 50 are shouting (or mumbling)?”

  7. Distribution of funded participants Barbraham, UK University of Washington Harvard BC Signaling Assays Lab Berkeley JHU UCSF Stanford Microscopy Lab Cal Tech Salk Nashville UCSD Molecular Biology Lab Bioinformatics Lab UT Southwestern Protein Lab Antibody Lab Cellular Preparation Steering Committee Systems Committee Lymphocyte Systems Committee Myocyte Alliance Labs

  8. 80% Technology Dev. Committee System Committees 40%100% 10% 5-10% Bridging Projects Organization from Gilman, 2003 Steering Committee Labs/Resources Administration Bioinformatics, data dissemination Membership & Editorial Committee Cell prep & analysis Assay development Editorial board Molecular biology Proteins Antibodies Alliance members Microscopy Signaling research community Signaling database

  9. Resource diagram

  10. Products- Alliance Labs • High quality data repository for the field- produced by labs • IP policy dictates that data is open to everyone • AfCS labs (informally) excluded! • Alliance members expected to do publishable analysis of this data

  11. Products- outside Alliance members • Signalling Gateway • Co-published with Nature Publishing Group • Molecule pages-- 3,000 article reference on every relevant molecule in the virtual cell • Outside researchers recruited to write Molecule pages- equivalent to a journal review article

  12. Technology used • Email lists • Custom bioinformatics databases • Developed at UCSD • Polycom • Use application sharing • Supported by UTSW • Reports • Annual meeting • Newsletters • Website • Web boards

  13. Use of Polycom • All PI’s have Viewstations in their offices • Gilman uses as a replacement for the phone • Used for all multi-site meetings, along with shared slides

  14. Motivations of participants • Dis-incentives to be overcome: • No ownership of data- IP policy dictated immediate publication • Little publication opportunity • Little distribution of individual credit

  15. Motivations of participants • Professional bench staff • Experience useful in industry or med school • “Best of both worlds” academic and corporate • Research staff - Lab directors, committee members • Chance to be involved in an innovative project • Lab improvement • Idiosyncratic motivations

  16. Motivations- community data system contributors • Molecule pages are equivalent to a review article, but more structured and need to be updated yearly • Co-published by Nature Publishing Group • (Will these ‘count’ as academic publications?)

  17. Alliance successes to date • IP policy • Recruitment of participants, members • Signalling gateway and ‘mini’ molecule pages • Standardizing protocols • Bioinformatics infrastructure • Public antibody database, reagents, protocols

  18. Protocols • Improvements in protocols due to need for replication

  19. Challenges • Specific target molecules being changed both to avoid problems and take advantage of new technology • Aggregation of data yet to be attempted • Relationship with outside authors still untested

  20. Outstanding questions: • Will academic/ industry hybrid model be successful? • Will CDS model (Molecule pages) be successful? • Will other Glue grant projects succeed in similar projects with radically different organizational structures?

More Related