Category: Uncategorized

Patients who contribute their data to research are primarily motivated by a desire to help others with the same plight, through the development of better treatments or even a cure. Out of respect for these individuals, and to uphold the fundamental tenets of the scientific process, I’d like the clinical trials community to shift its default position on data sharing and reuse to align to data availability on publication, similar to the life science community. This will enable more robust, rigorous research, create new opportunities for discovery and build trust between patients and scientists.

Continue reading “Sharing clinical data: everyone wins”

I have tweeted prolifically about the UK Referendum on membership in the European Union, strongly supporting the REMAIN (staying in the EU) campaign. In response to requests for a more substantial explanation of my position, I present here a short version and a long version of my views.

Continue reading “The EU Referendum in the UK: A very personal view”

This is the third and final post in a series in which I share some lessons learned about how to plan, manage, analyse and deliver a ‘big biodata’ project successfully.

Now that you have the results of your carefully planned, meticulously managed and diligently analysed experiment, it’s time to decide on what to publish, and where.
Continue reading “Publishing Big Data Science”

This is the second of three blog posts about planning, managing and delivering a ‘big biodata’ project. Here, I share some of my experience and lessons learned in management and analysis – because you can’t have one without the other. Continue reading “Managing and Analysing Big Data – Part II”

Biology has changed a lot over the past decade, driven by ever-cheaper data gathering technologies: genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and imaging of all sorts. After a few years of gleeful abandon in the data generation department, analysis has come to the fore, demanding a whole new outlook and on-going collaboration between scientists, statisticians, engineers and others who bring to the table a very broad range of skills and experience.

Continue reading “Advice on Big Data Experiments and Analysis, Part I: Planning”

I have written about the rise of human as a first-class model organism, and am an enthusiastic user of this outbred, large vertebrate, which can walk right into pre-funded phenotyping centres (hospitals). However, some scientists are (somewhat flippantly) predicting ‘the demise of all non-human model organisms’ completely, only conceding the necessity for using mouse in impossible-in-human verification experiments. Although such positions tend to be put forward in jest, their underlying argument resonates: given our obsession on human health, and how much we can do humans – with broad outbred genetics, iPSC cell lines and organoids – why should we bother with other systems?

Continue reading “In defence of model organisms”