Go here, REALLY do something to help cancer victims and research

Instead of posting some inane note on Facebook or Twitter or some such, however heartfelt or well-intended, you can actually go to a British research organization's website and help do some research for them and for cancer victims across the world. I saw it in the Star today but, as usual, couldn't find it on their online website. (I swear, the Kansas City Star has the worst internal search engine quite possibly in the world):

Charity creates world's first citizen science project to speed up cancer research

Cancer Research UK Press Release

TeenagersCancer Research UK has launched the first ever interactive website - http://www.clicktocure.net - that will allow the public to delve into real-life cancer data from research archives and speed up lifesaving research, outside of the laboratory.

At the moment, cancer samples are given special stains that highlight certain molecules as part of research. These molecules could reveal how a patient will respond to treatment. But this process is slow and analysis is mostly done by trained pathologists, who are often also cancer researchers.

The new website – Cell SliderTM – is the first time real cancer data has been turned into a format that can be analysed by the public. By getting as many people as possible to take part, more samples will be analysed faster and more effectively, freeing up scientists to carry out other cancer research.



More from the article:

Cell SliderTM presents real images of tumour samples to the world for analysis in the form of a simple game of snap. Users will be guided through a tutorial that explains which cells to analyse and which ones to ignore.

Once cancer cells have been spotted by their irregular shape, users will be asked to record how many have been stained yellow and how bright that yellow is by simply clicking on another image that closely matches the sample they are viewing.

This information will be fed back to researchers who will look for trends between types of cells and a patient’s response to treatment.

So go to the website and help cancer research. Then, go again and again, as many times as you can, whenever you can to really help in the fight against cancer.

Link to full press release: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/news/archive/pressrelease/2012-10-23-worlds-first-citizen-science?view=rss