People have asked us what institutions are most represented on Epernicus. Here are the top five. We are proud to say that our members come from some of the finest research institutions in the world!

Rounding out the top 15:  U. Washington, Yale, U.T. Austin, UCSF, Ohio State, Rice, UCLA, Northwestern, Michigan State and U. Michigan

Epernicus CEO Eric Silberstein gave a demo of Epernicus to a crowd of more than 800 attendees as one of three “Main Dish” presenters selected for last week’s Web Innovators Group meeting in Cambridge, MA.  The response in the main hall was very positive, and after the demo we were able to connect with dozens of attendees one-on-one in the “Side Dish” room.  Eric, I and Mikhail Shapiro (pictured in photo) represented Epernicus.

Thanks to the organizers for a great event!

posted by Ezra Freedman, CTO

It was great seeing our customers and other thought leaders at our executive product advisory council meeting this week in Boston.  It was pretty incredible having so many people from top pharma and science organizations in one room talking about social media and really digging into the benefits and challenges.  Just finished going through the feedback forms — feedback has been very positive and and the most common suggestion was that we make the meeting longer next time.  Special thanks to GSK, Genzyme and the Broad Institute for your great case studies.  A few photos from the event:

posted by Cameron Snider, VP Business Development

We’re pleased to announce that Epernicus was recently selected to present at WebInno23 at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, MA.  The event takes place on Tuesday, September 29th at 7PM, where Epernicus CEO Eric Silberstein will be demoing Epernicus to a crowd of more than 800 attendees as one of three “Main Dish” companies.

Register online (attendance is free) at http://webinno23.eventbrite.com/

Both Eric and I will be at the event — if you’re in the Boston area and can make it, come find us!

posted by Ezra Freedman, CTO

We are excited to tell you about a new development at Epernicus – the creation of internal social networking platforms for pharma companies and non-profit research institutes. This new venture was inspired by companies who liked what they saw on our public site and realized they needed a community like Epernicus inside their institution.

Many companies and research institutes have thousands of researchers spread across multiple locations. As you might imagine, enabling effective communication and collaboration among researchers and between internal business units can be challenging. Social networking platforms can facilitate these interactions by enabling people to easily locate, learn about, and contact each other. They can also accelerate serendipitous interactions which, in turn, can speed up the path to discovery and development.

The private internal versions of Epernicus are highly tailored to fit the specific culture and needs of institutions ranging from non-profit research organizations to pharmaceutical companies to medical device companies. Our platforms can also be molded for companies outside the traditional biomedical research space.

You can learn more about Epernicus Solutions and see a brief slide show at http://solutions.epernicus.com/. Please contact us at http://solutions.epernicus.com/contact.php with questions or comments.

posted by Vivek Murthy, Chairman

One of the features we’ve most often been asked about via the Epernicus feedback form is the capability to search BenchQ threads.  While this functionality was not prioritized for early releases of Epernicus, we quietly introduced this feature last month.  We’re now indexing all BenchQ questions (and corresponding replies), and return results only for those questions which you are permitted to view.

Click here to try a BenchQ search for “PCR” and learn from the collective knowledge on Epernicus.

Thanks for your continued feedback, and for helping us to make a better Epernicus.

posted by Ezra Freedman, CTO

Epernicus was recently featured on a list of “10 Cool Niche Social Networks” by PC Magazine. While I’m not sure how I feel about us making the same list as MuggleSpace (a network for people who love Harry Potter), I do believe there is significant value to social/professional networking platforms that do a really great job of addressing the needs of a certain group of people. One of our core tenets has been that researchers are a unique bunch (with concepts like one’s scientific genealogy being a strong part of our culture, for example) whose needs can only be addressed via a networking platform that understands the way science works.

Other specialized networks mentioned on the PC magazine list would include Shelfari for book collectors and Bottletalk for wine aficionados. Members of both of these networks have very specialized knowledge across a number of categories.

By the way, given the popularity of Harry Potter, I wouldn’t be surprised if MuggleSpace were the most popular site on this list .

posted by Mikhail Shapiro, Co-founder

Bio-IT World recently published a great article on social networking for scientists. It explains the benefits of scientific social networking and why you need specially-built networks like Epernicus to do it right.

http://www.bio-itworld.com/issues/2009/mar-apr/keeping-science-connected.html

Somewhere in physics heaven Erwin Schrödinger must be having a laugh. The following T-shirt design by Jonathan Littleton of Purdue University (thank you Jonathan for sharing it with us!) claims to solve the issue of the superposition of two mutually exlusive quantum states: academic and social.

At the start of the year, Epernicus members cast their ballot for the top scientific breakthroughs of 2008. Below are the three candidates which received the most votes.

#1. GROWING A NEW ORGAN FROM A PATIENT’S OWN STEM CELLS

Thanks to stem cell research, people with failing organs may not need to wait for a donor or take harsh medications that prevent their immune systems from rejecting transplanted tissue. One of the greatest examples of regenerative medicine — the science of building or fixing body parts — took place in 2008, when doctors removed some cells from a 30-year-old woman with tuberculosis and used them to grow a new trachea, replacing a segment that was destroyed by the bacterium. They took stem cells from her bone marrow, layered them onto a decellularized trachea from a deceased donor, and surgically implanted it in the woman. Four months later, Claudia Castillo could breathe well and showed no signs of the side-effects that patients have when they receive an organ from someone else. (Source: Wired Science)

# 2. REPROGRAMMING CELLS

This year, scientists achieved a long-sought feat of cellular alchemy. They took skin cells from patients suffering from a variety of diseases and reprogrammed them into stem cells. The feat rests on a genetic trick, first developed in mice and described 2 years ago, in which scientists wipe out a cell’s developmental “memory,” causing it to return to its pristine embryonic state and then regrow into something else. Researchers achieved another milestone this year when they prompted mouse cells to make the leap directly from one mature cell into another – flouting the usual rule that development of cells is a one-way street. These achievements could be an important step on a long path to treating diseases with a patient’s own cells. (Source: Science)

# 3. TURNING WATER INTO FUEL

Companies like Nanosolar and Solyndra slashed the cost of solar energy, but we still need a clean way to store all this power. Daniel Nocera of MIT has an elegant solution: Use electricity to break water into hydrogen and oxygen, store it in separate tanks, then recombine the gases in a fuel cell when you need power. While this process normally takes a lot of energy, Nocera and his team found a catalyst that makes the task of splitting H2O remarkably easy. It could prove to be an efficient storage mechanism for energy harvested by solar cells and wind farms. (Sources: Wired Science, Science)