Infectious Thoughts

Now this is how we should be doing science!

Siouxsie Wiles • Aug 22, 2012

• Alex Clark,
• drug discovery,
• Michael Pollastri,
• neglected tropical diseases,
• Open Drug Discovery Team,
• open source,
• parasites,
• Sean Ekins,
• sleeping sickness

Professor Michael Pollastri is an Associate Professor of Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Northwestern University. His research is focused in the area of drug discovery for neglected tropical diseases. Think sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, lymphatic filariasis, and schistosomiasis. There is a real lack of coordination between … Read More

Melons and glowing eggs

Siouxsie Wiles • Aug 20, 2012

• bacteriophage,
• bioluminescence,
• eggs,
• phage,
• Salmonella

Yesterday’s post on the current melon Salmonella outbreak reminded me of an old paper I read once. Alas, its not open access so it will cost you US$37 (+ tax it says…) if you want to read it, but you can get the gist from the abstract. To summarise, bacteria can fall victim to viruses … Read More

Deadly melons….

Siouxsie Wiles • Aug 19, 2012

• cantaloupe,
• CDC,
• food poisoning,
• melons,
• outbreak,
• Salmonella

According to to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is currently an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium going on associated with eating cantaloupe melons grown in southwestern Indiana. Infection with S. Typhimurium results if diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after ingesting the bacteria. In most cases, the … Read More

Statistically illiterate….

Siouxsie Wiles • Aug 19, 2012

• impact factors,
• journals,
• scientific publishing,
• Stephen Curry

‘Statistically illiterate’ is how scientist and blogger Stephen Curry describes those who support impact factors, used to rank scientific journals. The impact factor, calculated annually, reflects the mean number of citations to articles published in a journal in the two preceding years. He has a point. As Stephen describes: ….typically only 15% of … Read More

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Academic dilemma

Siouxsie Wiles • Aug 01, 2012

• Biomedcentral,
• BMC Microbiology,
• Elsevier,
• F1000 Research,
• Nights,
• open access,
• Peer J,
• PLOS One,
• Radio New Zealand National,
• the cost of knowledge,
• Tim Gower,
• Utopia Documents

I’ve just been listening to Cambridge mathematician Sir Tim Gowers interview from last night on Radio New Zealand National’s Nights programme. He wrote a blog post which sparked the recent boycott of academic publishing giant Elsevier. Currently 12,541 academics have pledged to either not publish, review for or do editorial work for an Elsevier owned journal. I … Read More

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Crowdfunding update

Siouxsie Wiles • Jul 31, 2012

• crowdfunding,
• scifund

It’s been a while since I last blogged as I’ve a few new projects I’ve been distracted with of late. More of those in the near future. But for now, I thought I’d do an update on my crowdfunding effort. In May I took part in the SciFund Challenge, the brain child of two ecologists from the US, Dr. Read More

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The Innovate TB contest

Siouxsie Wiles • Jun 14, 2012

• Animation,
• bioluminescence,
• fireflies,
• Firefly,
• lampyridae,
• TB,
• tuberculosis

The Stop TB Partnership and Working Group on New TB Drugs are currently running the Innovate TB Contest where people where asked to submit their videos showing how innovations are revolutionising tuberculosis (TB) prevention, treatment and advocacy. Submissions are now closed and the public have just a couple of days left to vote. The three videos with the … Read More

Never mind open access – let’s make science really accessible!

Siouxsie Wiles • May 29, 2012

• 21st floor,
• open access,
• Pecha Kucha,
• wiki

As a publicly funded scientist, I’m a firm believer in the public having a right to access the research they pay for, and being willing to talk about what I do and why to any audience that is curious. It’s one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to talk at Pecha Kucha in Auckland earlier this month. Read More

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Last few days of the #SciFund challenge

Siouxsie Wiles • May 28, 2012

• crowdfunding,
• Science,
• scifund,
• spellbound,
• Waitomo

Just 4 days left to support some cool science! Glowing #SciFund logo! Entering its final phase*, round 2 of the #SciFund challenge has surpassed the records made by round 1: Over $79K contributed to date 17 out of 75 projects have reached their target My own project, Evolution in Action is just $102 short of … Read More

SciFund Challenge – Target achieved!

Siouxsie Wiles • May 20, 2012

• bacteria,
• bioluminescence,
• crowdfunding,
• evolution,
• Infectious Diseases,
• RocketHub,
• scifund,
• whole genome sequencing

Glowing bacteria attract over $3000 for science in 15 days! For those who don’t know, this month I am taking part in the SciFund Challenge, raising money for my research using the RocketHub crowdfunding platform. My project, Evolution in Action, involves studying how infectious microbes evolve to cause disease and I am raising money to sequence the … Read More

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