Articles TechnologyInternet‘Click to cure’ cancer web project
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‘Click to cure’ cancer web project

By Sally - Silversurfer's Editor Oct 26, 2012

Millions of computer users are being invited to contribute to cancer research via an interactive website.

The “citizen science” project from Cancer Research UK is the first of its kind in the world.

It is designed to speed up the rate at which molecules can be identified in cancer cells that may predict how a patient responds to treatment.

The Cell Slider website presents real images of tumour samples and operates in a similar way to the card game snap.

CELL SLIDER

Users are first guided through a tutorial which explains which cells to analyse and which ones to ignore.

Once cancer cells have been identified by their irregular shape, users are asked to record how many have been stained yellow and how bright the colour is.

They do this by clicking on another image that most closely matches the sample they are viewing. The information is fed back to researchers who look for correlations between cell types and treatment responses.

Professor Paul Pharoah, from Cambridge University, who helped develop Cell Slider, said: “We’re really excited to be involved in this world-first project and we’re extremely eager to see what this can do for our research in the future.

“There is information that can transform cancer treatments buried in our data – we just need the manpower to unlock them. We’ve turned our data into something that can be accessed by anyone – you don’t have to be a scientist to carry out this type of cancer research.

“If we can get millions of people on Cell Slider, we hope to condense what normally takes years of research into months.”

Is this something you would consider to be involved with?

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Sally - Silversurfer's Editor

Mother of three grown-up daughters and a proud grandma too, I am the ultimate multi-tasker and am passionate about my role as Silversurfers Website Editor and Social Media Manager. Always on the lookout for all things that will interest and entertain our community. Fueling fun for the young at heart!

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