We are pleased to announce the awardees of the third edition of the Douglas Open Science Awards! These awards are made possible through funding from the Douglas Foundation and the Tanenbaum Open Science Initiative (TOSI).
Of the many worthy projects received, the two prize recipients are :
- Sakiko Yamaguchi, with Dr. Manuela Ferrari, for the project: “Open science for equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility: creation of plain language summaries with patient-partners”
Project summary: “In the project ‘Open science for equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility: creation of plain language summaries with patient-partners,’ we will create plain language summaries (PLS: short summaries of journal publications written in a non-technical language) with patient-partners. The project aims to contribute to bridging the gap in communicating research evidence to diverse audiences. By fostering collaborations between patient/family-partners and research teams at the Douglas, creation of PLS will support capacity building of patient/family-partners in science communication as well as the use of shared research outputs for educational, health, and societal impact in line with the Douglas Open Science Principles.”
Sakiko Yamaguchi
- James Carmichael & Javad Karmimi Abadchi (joint award), with Dr. Sylvain Williams and Dr. Mark Brandon, for the project: “The MiniDrive: a low-cost open tool for combining high-density calcium imaging and electrophysiology”
Project summary: “Recent advances in systems neuroscience have accelerated our understanding of how networks of neurons support complex behaviours. Cellular imaging allows researchers to track the activity of hundreds of individual neurons across the behavioral timescale (seconds-months) while electrical recordings can sense sub-millisecond dynamics. By combining these methods we can better understand the full range of neural computations underlying healthy brain activity. However, bridging these methods poses significant technical and financial barriers. After years of developing ad-hoc solutions, we have designed the MiniDrive, a low-cost, 3D printable device that allows for simultaneous high-precision electrical recordings with large-scale cellular imaging. Through the support of the Douglas Open Science Awards, we will refine, test, scale, and share our design, providing a simple and affordable device to the community. We hope the MiniDrive will remove the technical and cost barriers to cutting-edge methods and enhance transparency/reproducibility through a standard but evolving community-driven design process.”
James Carmichael & Javad Karmimi Abadchi
The selected trainees have demonstrated a clear alignment with our Open Science principles and a potential to contribute to open science at the Douglas and beyond. We wish them great success!
Congratulations to the prize winners!