From Stardust to Blood Stalls: How Citizen Science is Accelerating Alzheimer's Treatment Research, talk given by Egle Marija Ramanauskaite at The COINS international life sciences conference, March 2017, Vilnius. The talk gives an overview of the transformation of a historic stardust@home volunteer thinking platform built to look for interstellar dust particles, to StallCatchers.com - a game to speed up Alzheimer's research.

1. From Stardust to Blood Stalls:
How Citizen Science is Accelerating Alzheimer‘s
Treatment Research
EGLĖ MARIJA RAMANAUSKAITĖ
THE COINS, VILNIUS 2017-03-01

2. Links between reduced blood flow in the brain &
Alzheimer’s disease
Reducing stalls seems to reverse some
of the Alzheimer’s symptoms
2014

3. In vivo two-photon microscopy allows discrimination of individual flowing vs
stalled capillary segments

4. = 6 months
ONE EXPERIMENT

5. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Machines Humans
Accuracy
-- Research threshold
Machines Lab Experts
COMPUTER ALGORYTHMS

6. = 6 months
= 1 week
CROWD POWER

7. WHAT IS CITIZEN SCIENCE?
ASTROPHYSICS
Members of the public taking part in real
scientific research:
HUMAN HEALTH
CONSERVATION
SCIENCE

8. Hundreds of citizen science projects already
out there
...

9. 2006

10. FIRST CITIZEN SCIENCE GAME
TO FIGHT ALZHEIMER'S

11. Is outlined
capillary
flowing or
stalled?
#1

12. Is outlined
capillary
flowing or
stalled?
#2

13. 0.900
0.910
0.920
0.930
0.940
0.950
0.960
0.970
0.980
0.990
1.000
0 10 20
Annotations per vessel
Crowd vs Gold Standard
sensitivity
specificity
Validation Study
Research
Threshold

14. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Stall Catchers Lab Experts
Accuracy
Research
Threshold
Stall Catchers Lab Experts

15. More Participants = Faster Research
1
2
4
8
16
32
64
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
WeeksperExperiment
Number of Stall Catchers Participants
Analysis Time
TODAY

16. Vessel analyses carried out by Stall Catchers players
will directly help answer research questions, such as:
Without volunteers, these questions could take decades to
answer!
HOW DO VOLUNTEERS HELP THE RESEARCH?
• What molecular mechanisms are involved in
reduced blood flow in Alzheimer’s?
• Which processes can be targeted to improve
blood flow?
• Are vessel stalls linked to amyloid
accumulation or other aspects of Alzheimer’s?
• Does using a particular drug help reduce
stalls in the brain of mice?

17.  Gamification  Dynamic consensus
methods
 More accessibility
for older population

18. As of today…

19. @Seplute @eyesonalz
egle@eyesonalz.com
blog.eyesonalz.com
stallcatchers.com
THANK YOU!