This week, we are happy to add a new doc set and introduce a new feature. Given that our awesome Mark2Curators have already completed about 27% of the CDG quests, the next document set (o-linked glycosylation disorders) has been loaded and is ready to go! Earlier this week, we introduced the new ‘Team’ field, which will allow us to add some new dimensions to the user experience and enable us to further engage in collaborative outreach. We will be updating the user profile pages and profile settings to reflect this new feature in the near future.
Mark2Curators have been sending us (and posting to the Wikia forum) all sorts of suggestions–some of which are easy to implement; others, more time-consuming. Even if we do not implement all of them immediately, we are grateful to have them, so thank you for your feedback! A few users have confessed their uncertainty with the genes concept and have requested resources for learning more about genes and gene products. Mark2Curators who ask questions and ask for learning resources are fantastic! We admire curiosity and the desire to know more, as these are important traits in science.
Here are a few fun resources which may be helpful for learning more about genes and how they translate into proteins. If you know of some good resources, please feel free to share them as well! Another good place for examples on what to mark and what not to mark is from other Mark2Curators. Mark2Curators have been posting great questions with specific examples, so it’s a good idea to check the forums if you have questions.
Lastly, there’s an NGLY1 awareness day in June (June’s 1st?) in Utah. Follow @Ngly1org for more information. Check out the Might’s touching story in this American MedChem video. If you missed Andrew’s talk on Mark2Cure at the Big Data in Biomedicine conference, his slide deck is here.
I am a very recently retired biology professor and am intrigued by the citizen science/crowd sourcing idea that the Su lab has undertaken. How does one become involved? I saw the news item in Science and hope that it will draw in other retired scientists with time on their hands.
Hi Kent!
We would love for you to become involved to whatever extent you desire! If you want to help with marking docs and enhancing the user experience, you can join at http://mark2cure.org and click start now! We now have a ‘team’ field in the profile settings, so you can start a team with fellow retired scientists. If you want to become even more involved, we are always happy to have volunteers. The core team working on Mark2Cure is really small, so we have only been able to move forward at our current pace thanks to the generosity of volunteers. If you have a time, we could use your help. We’re especially in need of people who can help out in the arenas described here: http://mark2cure.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:For_Volunteers, but can always find something that fits better if those don’t interest you.