

'Petridish' Aims To Crowdfund Science And Research Projects - kapkapkap
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/08/petridish-aims-to-crowdfund-science-and-research-projects/

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possibilistic
Well, there goes my start up...

I have been working on this idea in Python/Flask in my spare time while doing
school. Perhaps not a smart move on my part. I thought my science background
would really help things get off to a good start.

This has been a terrible month. Breakup with SO of four years, killer
midterms, this. How does HN deal with this kind of thing? Do you still push
forward with your unfinished work?

Edit: I'm a computational biochemist / computational chemist with LOTS of lab
experience. I can work gloves-on or gloves-off.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Edit: Moved the following from a grandchild post for greater visibility.

I'll have to drop out this semester and find some Atlanta Python hackers... Is
it wise to do so? (PyAtl may have some.)

I wanted to do it as a labor of love, but force open publication for anyone
accepting funds. I don't want a pay cut except to keep things running. I also
want to focus on molecular bio, medical and disease research, etc. Maybe it's
"less romantic", but it has a much greater potential to collapse technological
reverse salients.

Amazon payments would also keep out a large segment of the world. That's
unacceptable. I'd rather have someone on staff to handle things manually.

Equipment procurement, etc. would be great for smaller schools and labs.

I also thought it would be cool to let the teams have a blog/vlog where they
show the public how their ongoing research is progressing. The public would be
very intrigued to see how difficult and painstaking it can be. Public
education is a major return from this.

Here's a big problem though--you can't just fund a "project"! You have to fund
every step along the way of inquiry:

Question A --> (fund) --> Answer, New Question B --> (fund) --> Answer, New
Question C --> ... --> Question N --> Wrap it up in a pretty bow for
publication.

Every step needs funding, because quite often you reach dead ends when
traversing some large inquiry space.

It's science. Since you're exploring new territory, you never know how deep
the rabbit hole is. You don't know how hard you'll have to look. You can't
anticipate how much you'll screw up and lose weeks/months of hard work.

I also wanted to pull in rankings of the top/most-cited authors, etc. as a
factor for more informed funding decisions. It would also be a great way for
new scientists to start gaining a track record instead of waiting to become
the "grey beards in charge".

This sort of process would be _amazing_ for cancer researchers. You can really
break it down to every question being asked and let the public become fully
aware of how things are progressing.

~~~
yarone
Instead of building the software yourself, why don't you license it from
others and focus on operating the site?

See invested.in, who licenses their crowd funding platform out of LA (and on
reasonable terms).

Disclaimer: it's my brother's company

~~~
possibilistic
That's not a bad idea at all! Software isn't what makes this work,
necessarily. It's the networking and deep knowledge of the scientific process.
My colleagues and I have the latter part already. These guys look like
software/VC folk. I don't think they have that.

How much would your brother charge if we operated as a non-profit? Is it a
hosted platform, or do we need to deploy ourselves?

Edit: I contacted the company via their form. Hopefully I can hear back from
them.

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polyfractal
Bah, I've written before about why "crowdfunding" research is cute but
entirely ineffective. I should just save the response and paste it every time
an article like this comes up.

Basically, this can only work for tiny projects. Any life sciences related
project can't be funded at all. Consider a single vial of antibody (50uL of
liquid) costs roughly $300. Reagents are expensive...there is a reason the NIH
hands out grants which are $100k to $1m.

Hell, just paying for a technician to perform the experiment is about
$25-30k/year (which is dirt cheap compared to basically any other field of
skilled labor), ignoring benefits.

Science is expensive.

~~~
cglace
This could become the new type of charity. Instead of giving money to an
organization that wants to "fight cancer" you could give your money directly
to the research project of your choice.

~~~
refurb
Typical charities like the Michael J Fox foundation fund the most promising
programs and researchers they can find (they spend a LOT of time doing this).

Is there really any benefit to giving your money to some guy who wants to do
research in his garage? I mean, if he was so good, why wouldn't he be working
at an academic institution?

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gammarator
See also: <http://www.fundageek.com/> and <http://sciflies.org/>

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JVIDEL
Like the concept, not so much the projects they have right now.

BTW is just me or these crowdfunding sites are all the same? are there any
examples of someone modifying the "formula" and coming up with something new?

~~~
jjb123
i'm one of the two founders of crowdtilt, in the current yc batch - our
modification on the model is crowdfunding for groups of friends (ie instead of
a $40,000 documentary it's a $800 party-bus or $500 tailgate), though now it's
being used for bigger things like renting out a space for sxsw or renting out
a big house for group vacations.

note: crowdtilt doesn't really enter the discussion of this thread, but
figured i'd answer your question above

