Alliance for Cellular Signaling AfCS

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Alliance for Cellular Signaling(AfCS)

• Scaling up academic science

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Collaboratory types

• Distributed research center
• Large-scale, high-throughput academic/ industry
  hybrid
• Community data system
• Unique model for motivating and coordinating
  community contributions

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History

• Success of human genome project
• NIH budget increase led to Glue Grant idea-
  scaling up science
• AfCS was the first glue grant, several others
  have followed

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History

• Al Gilman organized two meetings of signalling
  community at UTSW
• Meeting 1 12 people from UTSW
• Meeting 2 30 people
• Funded started in 2000

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Scientific problem

• AfCS is an attempt to account for all signalling
  activity in a few model cells

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Scientific problem

• There are 3,000 molecules that are potential
  signals in a cell
• Interactions are complex and poorly understood
• How do cells hear and interpret one voice when
  50 are shouting (or mumbling)?

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Distribution of funded participants
Barbraham, UK
University of Washington
Harvard
BC
Signaling Assays Lab
Berkeley
JHU
UCSF
Stanford
Microscopy Lab
Cal Tech
Salk
Nashville
UCSD
Molecular Biology Lab
Bioinformatics Lab
UT Southwestern
Protein Lab
Antibody Lab
Cellular Preparation
Steering Committee
Systems Committee Lymphocyte
Systems Committee Myocyte
Alliance Labs
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Organization from Gilman, 2003
Steering Committee
Labs/Resources
Administration
Bioinformatics, data dissemination
Membership Editorial Committee
Cell prep analysis
Assay development
Editorial board
Molecular biology
Proteins
Antibodies
Alliance members
Microscopy
Signaling research community
Signaling database
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Resource diagram
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Products- Alliance Labs

• High quality data repository for the field-
  produced by labs
• IP policy dictates that data is open to everyone
• AfCS labs (informally) excluded!
• Alliance members expected to do publishable
  analysis of this data

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Products- outside Alliance members

• Signalling Gateway
• Co-published with Nature Publishing Group
• Molecule pages-- 3,000 article reference on every
  relevant molecule in the virtual cell
• Outside researchers recruited to write Molecule
  pages- equivalent to a journal review article

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Technology used

• Email lists
• Custom bioinformatics databases
• Developed at UCSD
• Polycom
• Use application sharing
• Supported by UTSW
• Reports
• Annual meeting
• Newsletters
• Website
• Web boards

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Use of Polycom

• All PIs have Viewstations in their offices
• Gilman uses as a replacement for the phone
• Used for all multi-site meetings, along with
  shared slides

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Motivations of participants

• Dis-incentives to be overcome
• No ownership of data- IP policy dictated
  immediate publication
• Little publication opportunity
• Little distribution of individual credit

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Motivations of participants

• Professional bench staff
• Experience useful in industry or med school
• Best of both worlds academic and corporate
• Research staff - Lab directors, committee members
• Chance to be involved in an innovative project
• Lab improvement
• Idiosyncratic motivations

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Motivations- community data system contributors

• Molecule pages are equivalent to a review
  article, but more structured and need to be
  updated yearly
• Co-published by Nature Publishing Group
• (Will these count as academic publications?)

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Alliance successes to date

• IP policy
• Recruitment of participants, members
• Signalling gateway and mini molecule pages
• Standardizing protocols
• Bioinformatics infrastructure
• Public antibody database, reagents, protocols

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Protocols

• Improvements in protocols due to need for
  replication

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Challenges

• Specific target molecules being changed both to
  avoid problems and take advantage of new
  technology
• Aggregation of data yet to be attempted
• Relationship with outside authors still untested

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Outstanding questions

• Will academic/ industry hybrid model be
  successful?
• Will CDS model (Molecule pages) be successful?
• Will other Glue grant projects succeed in similar
  projects with radically different organizational
  structures?