Open Notebook Science with Jean-Claude Bradley September 5, 2008

Open Notebook Science using Free and Hosted Tools

This talk will describe the practice of Open Notebook Science (ONS), a form of Open Science where a laboratory's experiments are made immediately publicly available. The UsefulChem project, involving the synthesis and testing of novel anti-malarial agents, will be highlighted as an example of ONS. The use of blogs, wikis, mailing lists, GoogleDocs, Second Life and other social software will be detailed. The application of cheminformatics tools to store and retrieve information will be demonstrated as a means of moving towards automation of the scientific process in novel ways. Such an open architecture is conducive to productive collaboration between groups of complementary competency. For example, the design, synthesis and testing of novel anti-malarial agents, bringing together groups from Indiana University, Drexel University and UCSF, will be detailed.

About the speaker

Jean-Claude Bradley is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and E-Learning Coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University. He leads the UsefulChem project, an initiative started in the summer of 2005 to make the scientific process as transparent as possible by publishing all research work in real time to a collection of public blogs, wikis and other web pages. Jean-Claude coined the term Open Notebook Science to distinguish this approach from other more restricted forms of Open Science. The main chemistry objective of the UsefulChem project is currently the synthesis and testing of novel anti-malarial agents. The cheminformatics component aims to interface as much of the research work as possible with autonomous agents to automate the scientific process in novel ways. Jean-Claude teaches undergraduate organic chemistry courses with most content freely available on public blogs, wikis, games and audio and video podcasts. Openness in research meshes well with openness in teaching. Real data from the laboratory can be used in assignments to practice concepts learned in class. Jean-Claude has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and has published articles and obtained patents in the areas of synthetic and mechanistic chemistry, gene therapy, nanotechnology and scientific knowledge management.

This talk is currrently scheduled for 2pm in room LG.010 in the ground floor of the MIB, just past the canteen. Please contact Duncan Hull for further details.

Official Website: http://www.myexperiment.org/blogs/1