How fitness band wearers can help advance medical research
Technology is making it easier than ever for researchers to harness the power of citizen scientists to collect actionable health information and solve complex biological problems
Health research too often seems like it's restricted to people in white coats who come out only to hand us a new pill or give us some click-worthy advice, like "Researchers say keep eating walnuts!" But more and more, researchers are finding ways to involve people in their research.
To make health science applicable to everyone in their daily lives, research groups are bringing the science outside the laboratory and into the hands of those who need it most. One way they can do this is by regularly collecting personalized data using equipment with sensors. Fortunately, more and more people are using wearable sensors like the Apple Watch or Fitbit to track physical fitness. By going with this trend, researchers can use the data that's collected for personal use towards even bigger projects.
On May 23, Autoimmune Citizen Science launched an app to enable anyone with a smartphone to track their journey to autoimmune health. It is estimated that as many as 50 million Americans could suffer from at least one autoimmune disease – a group of conditions where the body's immune system attacks its own cells and tissues. The Autoimmune Citizen Science app is designed to empower individuals with autoimmune disease by keeping track of medications, symptoms, and improvements to not only uncover trends but also submit them for immunology research. If the 50 million Americans with autoimmune disease were to all contribute their journey through the app, researchers will be able to use the database to create technologies to personalize medicine for each patient.
Infino.me is a citizen science project that takes fitness databases an extra step further. The scientists behind Infino.me use fitness tracking technologies that people often have already alongside user-friendly genome tests like 23andMe, which uses an at-home saliva sample to map out an individual's genome. The team at Infino.me then interprets the genome and the data collected from devices such as Fitbit or Jawbone to determine an individual's risk of various obesity-related diseases. By increasing awareness of obesity-related problems, a database of fitness tracking can reveal important trends in the way we think about weight and fitness.
For researchers who need to solve complex problems that require many person-hours of work or those that simply cannot be tackled by a group of researchers, one popular way to get citizen scientists to participate is by 'gamification' or turning the project into a game that anyone can play. Eterna, the online puzzle game launched by the Stanford School of Medicine lets players try and fold ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules into different shapes by experimenting with its chemical makeup. RNA is similar to DNA which makes up the human genome, and is necessary for life. RNA folding has a direct impact on its function and by understanding this better, researchers hope to advance medical science. Recently, the group behind Eterna have posed yet another challenge in trying to build an RNA based sensor to detect tuberculosis.
The upcoming citizen science project WeCureAlz also combines gaming with science: while collection of data related to Alzheimer's research can take just an hour, it takes weeks to turn the data into easy-to-read results. When data processing can be done with a crowd-sourced game, citizen scientists everywhere can help bring science closer to a cure for Alzheimer's. You can learn more about the science behind the project here and sign up to be one of the first to test the game and help make it better for everyone else.
The global study 100 for Parkinson's draws on both fitness tracking and gaming to with the app UMotif, which enables users to track their sleep quality, mood, exercise, diet, and stress levels for 100 days and submit their data for Parkinson's research. Several hospitals across the world have even implemented the app as a way for clinicians and patients to share data and help monitor the course of treatment. Even seemingly small changes in data can mean big things for Parkinson's researchers and help stop, slow, or reverse the disease.
Health research may start in the lab, but its final destination is in ourselves and the people around us that we love and cherish. By actively participating in health science, everyone can be part of public health solutions that will go on to save the world!
Find these and more than 1,000 opportunities to advance research on SciStarter, a Philadelphia-based organization with global reach.