
Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work - bmahmood
http://www.rockethub.com/projects/11106-crowdsourcing-discovery
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the_erd
Maybe it's just me, but looking at molecular accumulation in this way doesn't
seem that promising. However, there are other problems here...

In order to get this kind of research funded in a traditional way, the author
would need a much more detailed explanation of the work: specifically, a
compelling and well-referenced account of why drug accumulation in mouse brain
sections will be helpful in understanding the mechanism of stimulant function.
I would also like to see more detailed methodology and an account of how the
researcher will responsibly conduct the research (in terms of accounting for
hazardous materials and maintaining researcher safety). These are essential
components that any PI would need to provide in order to get research funded,
because they are necessary to ensure that the researcher can actually conduct
the research (has the knowledge and resources), and get it published (missing
some of these features would prevent publication in an academic journal).

It seems to me that other kinds of analysis, such as molecular state-space
based approaches (transcriptomics, metabolomics, etc.) would be much more
useful than cellular and sub-cellular accumulation, especially since we have
very little knowledge of how spatial tissue, cellular, and sub-cellular
neurobiology relate to brain function.

Please let me know if I just missed these essential details...

~~~
omnisci
After reading a bit more about this, it seems that they are an established lab
with protocols in line for the questions you asked about. The PI's last
publication
([http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0034024))
states that they are affiliated with Princeton, so dealing with hazardous
materials etc are dealt with Princeton's Environmental health and safety dept.
The same applies to animals, radioactive materials etc.

It looks like a lot of the details of the experiment are purposely left out of
the application as they are looking to appeal to the general public and I
think that is a smart thing to do. Putting details into the application would
make people's eyes glaze over, so keeping it simple was the correct way to go.

From my understanding of their proposal, they are looking to do something
quite common in neuroscience research. While I personally haven't done
autoradiography, I know people who have and it is a commonly(although not much
now) technique that has been used numerous times. To do this as a new lab,
without university support would be dangerous, unethical and worrisome, but it
seems clear this lab is already established.

What they propose seems to be an initial step in a nice project that could
lead to something useful. Doing the anatomy (they are basically trying to see
where the drug binds within the brain first) and then the molecular techniques
makes sense and I wish more labs did stuff like this. As a neuroscientist, I
applaud their going outside of the system and I'm happy to see that they will
share their data with everyone.

~~~
the_erd
I'm not sure that leaving details out of the proposal is really that smart. It
seems like we're doing the public a disservice by excluding them from the kind
of information traditional funding sources use to make allocation decisions,
because it reduces the basis for making funding decisions on all proposed
research to oversimplified descriptions, while providing no insight into
traditional research funding.

In other words, people can get duped into funding research that is not as well
founded as this one (supposedly), and we pass over a key opportunity to teach
the public how organizations like the NIH make funding decisions. Maybe if
people had an idea about how rigorously funding proposals are analyzed they
would be less likely to cut science funding because of inane arguments like
Sarah Palin made about public funding to study fruit flies.

~~~
omnisci
NIH has recently changed how they deal with grants. They are asking for less
methodology information and more of the conceptual info. I support that,
especially since most of the methods will be modified throughout the
experiment and commonly read over anyway. This is one step above that. The
concept and end result is the important portion for people to get interested
in the project. Those who are in the field know what autoradiography is and
how it is done and the investor who is interested in the outcome isn't going
to understand/care. If you have limited space to pitch an idea, are you going
to spend more time explaining the idea and why it’s awesome, or the intricate
details as to how you are going to do it? You talk about the idea and why it’s
awesome, if someone is interested in knowing how, they ask. In regards to
Sarah Palin’s inane arguments, I agree/disagree. There is some amazing science
going on, and some realllllly shitty science going on, both of which are
federally funded. This is a huge topic (also one of the main focuses of my YC
application) and I don’t know if the details of this proposal, or proposals
like this are the venue to really get at those issues. However, I do
understand your point and I think it is valid, just in a different venue.

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djkn0x
I made a $100 contribution (which gets the "talk science over a round of beer"
reward) earlier this month. The researcher, Ethan Perlstein, is actually in
the Bay Area at the moment... he reached out to me and we're having beers in
Palo Alto this afternoon. If you've contributed to the project and are in Palo
Alto feel free to join us for a chat / beers in the Science Exchange office
(459 Hamilton Ave).

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wpietri
I'm going to kick in. I'm willing to spend some money just to help prove that
croudfunded science can work. I understand why some are asking if this is the
exactly correct study to do, but I'm not worried. A) I'm willing to trust the
guy for $50, and B) once the market is established, competition will drive up
study quality.

~~~
sjg007
But Science is crowd funded by taxes, no?

~~~
wpietri
Some of it is _funded_ by taxes. So are some businesses, and some art. That's
all indirect support. _Crowd_ funding is direct support. Kickstarter has show
that can work for businesses and art.

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mcs
Title is a bit sensationalist don't you think? It's at least under the guise
of research.

~~~
aware2
Is it?

~~~
ninetax
The title was "Crowdfund a Meth Lab" but it has been changed.

~~~
bmahmood
Sorry, not sure why the title changed. Was originally 'Crowd Fund a Meth Lab',
as noted in other media outlets.

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eperlste
Thanks to everyone for all the thoughtful discussions!

And thanks to Bilal for starting this thread.

If anyone would like to discuss our project in greater detail, please email
me: eperlste@princeton.edu.

P.S. traffic from here to RocketHub resulted in 999 project video plays, which
is 40-times the previous day's total, and 3-times greater than the previous
daily high.

-Ethan

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stephenhandley
Really like the potential in crowdfunding of science as a way to get more
people interested in science. Would be interesting to see rewards tailored for
aspiring scientists. This research-topic is probably too controversial to
directly associate with high school and younger students but letting them
sponsor research projects in exchange for a lab tour / tutorial would be an
interesting way to get young people more interested in research.

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digitalpacman
I don't get it. All of these people on the project would typically have
amounts of money for research on whatever they want to do. Why do they need
more money? I guess I am missing the point. I've heard of a bunch professors
from friends that have huge research funds. They can even give portions of
their research grants to students.

~~~
polyfractal
As an ex-academic type, your statement is both true and false. Some professors
have large research grants, and indeed, their grants are what pay the salaries
of grad students and post-docs.

Other professors (the vast majority) struggle to get appropriate funding. It's
a horrible rat race to scrounge up enough money to continue your research. God
forbid if you aren't tenured - your job literally depends on how much funding
you can bring in (not enough papers = not enough funding = sacked for someone
else).

That said, $25k is laughably small amount of money in research. At my old lab,
I performed an experiment where I was easily blowing $1000 per week. And I was
just a single technician in a lab. Hell, I spent more in supplies than I was
paid in salary (probably by some multiple).

~~~
cup
I agree about the $25K part. I fail to see how they plan to achieve anything
when a single vial of ultra purified drug API or even dendrimer will see you
back a few thousand dollars.

I mean their intentions are great but I get the feeling they're yet to
experience the crushing and pessimistic realities of scientific and especially
pharmaceutical/neurobiological research. It's a depressign world for us
sometimes.

Edit: In review, I would be very interested to read about how they were given
permission to experiment on mice. Filling out the paperwork just to get
ethical approval alone is a daunting task.

~~~
omnisci
$25k for a single experiment is possible. I've applied to the national science
foundation for a single experiment and my budget (along with funds for me to
present the data at a conference (~$1500) was around $12k as we had most of
the stuff I needed already. This lab is already established, they just need
some extra funds to run this specific experiment (from what I've read).

Re: mouse work. I'm assuming they already have the facilities to run these
experiments...especially at Princeton. If they don't, I'm sure a neighboring
lab has the mice/protocols to run this experiment and they will/can cola
berate. They write up an IACUC protocol, go through a few bouts of revisions
and they should be able to run the experiment. This would be a simple protocol
as they are just injecting mice with the drug, this isn't out of the ordinary
by any means.

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mattacular
Why? There is already a pretty thorough understanding of how amphetamines work
(as compared to other psychoactive substances) because they've been used by
militaries around the world forever. Oh and baseball teams.

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bmahmood
For more information on the researcher's discipline, you can check out this
neat video on 'Evolutionary Pharmacology': <http://vimeo.com/44687770>

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cmaxwe
They should get Walter White to show them how to cook blue meth.

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Vuki777
I liked the old title better...

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keefe
> How will we spend your money?

on lawyers

~~~
dmix
Amphetiamines are used by the military to keep pilots awake and has a plenty
of other legal uses. Methamphetiamine, for example, is prescribed by doctors
to treat ADHD in low doses.

What exactly is illegal about researching the effects of the drug on the
brain?

The usual difficultly in studying this stuff is finding funding.

~~~
nowarninglabel
Either you live in a country with much more liberal drug laws than the UK or
US, or you are a bit misinformed. These countries have very strict regulations
on who can possess quantities of scheduled narcotics, even for research. It
took nearly a decade to get regulatory approval to schedule a MDMA research
study in the U.S. It's hard to find source on this stuff, but you can see as
noted here: [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22280-a-real-fmri-
high...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22280-a-real-fmri-high-my-
ecstasy-brain-scan.html)

~~~
dmix
MDMA is not used clinically like Amphetamines are.

You can find amphetamines at pharmacies in the USA under the brands: Adderall,
Dexedrine, Dextrostat, Desoxyn, Didrex, ProCentra, and Vyvanse.

In addition, the article doesn't say they are specifically going to use Meth,
only amphetamine.

~~~
keefe
MDMA still has limited clinical use and is under research, as is LSD but it is
under quite tight controls.

[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02791072.2008.104...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02791072.2008.10400637)

<http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1987-01824-001>

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Vuki777
Catchy title, great project.

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gbeeson
Clicked for the title, stayed for the project write up.

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ahillelt
That's pretty awesome! Citizen Science here we come!

~~~
omnisci
Citizen science is one of the goals of my YC application :) It will be here
soon.

