Epernicus -- Where Science Meets

New Site

Eric Silberstein — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 22:04:59 +0000

We admit it…we’re not the best bloggers…but 9 months since our last posting is is bad even for us! We’re posting today to highlight a few additions and changes we just made to our public site (www.epernicus.com).

#1 – When you visit Epernicus.com you’ll see three boxes linking to each of the three parts of our company — our public Epernicus Network, our Epernicus Solutions business, and Epernicus Clinical Research Systems. (If you want to go directly to the “old” login page for Epernicus Network go to www.epernicus.com/network.)

#2 – For the first time we’ve put some publicly accessible information up about our Clinical Research Systems business and product (www.ClinicalResearchSystems.com).

#3 – We posted a case study with one of our Epernicus Clinical Research Systems customers:

Top institutions on Epernicus

Mikhail Shapiro — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:05:47 +0000

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!

	Institution	Total	Undergrad	Grad	Post-doc	Faculty	Other
1	Harvard University	1068	30	316	370	113	239
2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	775	29	362	231	32	121
3	Indiana University	494	2	258	36	101	97
4	Stanford University	399	14	206	101	25	53
5	University of California, Berkeley	396	34	223	77	26	36

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

Recap from WebInno 23

Ezra Freedman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:02:50 +0000

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

2009 Epernicus EPAC meeting

Eric Silberstein — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:48:00 +0000

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

Epernicus to present at Webinno23!

Ezra Freedman — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:39:06 +0000

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.

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

Epernicus Launches Private Social Networking Solutions for Companies

Vivek Murthy — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:06:15 +0000

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

Searching BenchQs

Ezra Freedman — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:45:49 +0000

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

Niche Social Netwoks — PC Magazine

Mikhail Shapiro — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:56:24 +0000

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

Good article on Social Networking in Science in Bio-IT World

Mikhail Shapiro — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:52:20 +0000

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

Epernicus as a new quantum state

Mikhail Shapiro — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:24:06 +0000

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.