Hello everyone,

The next NIF Webinar will be held on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 11:00 am PST.   Please join Carlo Quinonez as he discusses Open Hardware in Science: Benefits and Challenges.

The following is a description of the webinar:

The need for free and easy access to scientific data and other information essential to scientific experiments has been clearly recognized for decades. Developments such as open source software, open data, open access journals and open courseware rely on the easy and efficient transfer of information over the Internet. However, the dissemination and collaborative development of open hardware for the benefit of scientific progress poses unique challenges and opportunities. The widespread prevalence of scientist-developed tools has been driven by commercial instruments’ lack of flexibility and detailed engineering data vital for user-improvements. While these technologies are put to good use by their developers, practical issues such as poor documentation, difficulty of fabrication, and idiosyncratic operation typically limit the utility to broader research community. In this webinar we will discuss the open hardware toolset, Aquinas, that addresses some of these issues and provides a shared hardware platform for biological experimentation. Currently, several micro-fluidics designs are available for fabrication. The facile reproduction of scientist-developed tools improves the reproducibility and transparency of science overall. Furthermore, a shared hardware platform for biological experimentation would also propel large-scale collaborative efforts to significantly accelerate the discovery of cures and scientific breakthroughs.

Date and Time: Tuesday, February 7, 2011 • 11:00-12:00 PST
Topic: OpenHardware in Science: Benefits and Challenges
Presenter: Carlo Quinonez, Ph.D., IRACDA Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego.
URL: http://connect.neuinfo.org/webinar
Dial-In (toll-free): 866-740-1260
Access Code: 8220739

Mark your calendars! See you there.

The Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF) hosts a semi-regular Tuesday Webinar series on topics focused on collaborating with NIF, getting involved in building the NIF vocabulary, using NIF portal resources, as well as other appropriate NIF topics.

--
NIF Communications Team
UC San Diego
3rd Floor, Atkinson Hall
9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0446
La Jolla, California 92093

858-822-0755
http://www.neuinfo.org

Material taken from UCSD University Communications and Public Affairs News Center, January 25, 2012.

Led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, scientists have, for the first time, created stem cell-derived, in vitro models of sporadic and hereditary Alzheimer’s disease (AD), using induced pluripotent stem cells from patients with the much-dreaded neurodegenerative disorder.

An account of this feat was published in the January 25 online edition of the journal Nature.  It represents a new and much-needed method for studying the causes of AD, a progressive dementia that afflicts approximately 5.4 million Americans. More importantly, the living cells provide an unprecedented tool for developing and testing drugs to treat the disorder.

For the full story, please visit the UCSD News Center story at http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressreleases/researchers_induce_alzheimers_neurons_from_pluripotent_stem_cells/

Here are the top 25 accessed databases at NIF for January 2012:

1. Grants.gov/Opportunity
2. CCDB/All Information
3. SumsDB/Activation Foci
4. ResearchCrossroads/Grants
5. AntibodyRegistry/ABs
6. GENSAT/GENSAT
7. Drug Related Gene Database/DRG
8. BrainInfo/Brain Region
9. OneMind/BioBanks
10. RePORTER/CurrentNIHGrants
11. DrugBank/Drugs
12. ClinicalTrials/ClinTr
13. NIF Integrated Nervous System/Connectivity
14. NIF Integrated Video/Videos
15. ModelDB/Models
16. HumanBrainAtlas/Michigan
17. NIF Integrated Animals/Available
18. OMIM/Genes
19. NIHNeuro/Microarray Consortium
20. AllenInstitute/MouseBrainAtlas
21. NIF Integrated Software/Info
22. BrainMaps/Atlas
23. Gemma/Microarray
24. WikiPathways/ChemPathway
25. GeneNetwork/Info

Here are the top 25 Searches at NIF for January 2012.

1. database
2. Images
3. antibodyregistry
4. Brain Regions
5. Brain Activation Foci
6. Cingulate Cortex
7. Drugs
8. Multimedia
9. Animals
10. Alzheimer’s
11. Antibodies
12. Cerebellum
13. Hippocampus
14. Mitral Cell
15. Amygdala
16. Cerebral Crus
17. Cerebral Peduncle
18. Flocculonodular Lobe
19. Forebrain
20. Basal Ganglia
21. Brainstem
22. Corpus Callosum
23. Frontal Lobe
24. hippocampus
25. Claustrum

Hello,

A training workshop is being offered at UCSD for the Allen Brain Atlas.   “Using the Allen Brain Atlas Online Public Resources” will feature a training workshop on the Allen Brain Atlas online public resources for exploring gene expression in the nervous system.  Basic data access, navigation and usability will be covered as well as more sophisticated search and visualization features.

Participation is free.
Advanced registration is required.

To register:  Email info@alleninstitute.org and indicate “UCSD Training Workshop” in the subject line.   Capacity is limited.

The workshop will be held:

Monday, January 23, 2012
1:30 pm – 4:30 pm
UCSD
CNCB Auditorium
La Jolla, CA

This workshop will touch on the full spectrum of resources available via the Allen Brain Atlas data portal (www.brain-map.org), but will focus primarily on navigation and search features of the following data sets:

> Adult human brain
> Adult mouse brain
> Non-human primate brain

For a hands-on experience, attendees are encourages to bring a laptop with Internet/Wi-Fi connectivity so that they can follow along.

Thank you!

--
NIF Communications Team
UC  San Diego
3rd Floor, Atkinson Hall
9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0446
La Jolla, California 92093

858-822-0755
http://www.neuinfo.org