European project · Citizen science research
Cell Spotting
The public analysed images of tumour cells to study the effect of potential cancer drugs
About the project
Cell Spotting involved the public in cancer research by analysing images of real cells treated with potential drugs. This image recognition helped advance the study of programmed cell death, or apoptosis.
The app showed microscope images of cell cultures and asked simple questions such as ‘Is the cell round or elongated?’ or ‘Is the nucleus fragmented?’. From the answers, researchers could tell what was happening in each culture and whether the compounds applied were effective. Each image was sent to several participants to validate the results.
One current approach to cancer is to look for substances that selectively kill tumour cells. Their effect is studied with automated microscopy, which takes images at intervals of cultures in which nuclei and mitochondria are stained with fluorescent colours. Ideally, an anti-tumour compound should trigger apoptosis rather than necrosis, because apoptotic cells are cleared without inflaming healthy tissue.
The principal investigator was José Alberto Carrodeguas, and the app was one of the use cases of the European project SOCIENTIZE.
Project objectives
- Use crowdsourcing to analyse large volumes of cell images, a task that had become a bottleneck for researchers.
- Determine whether the substances tested induced apoptosis or necrosis in tumour cells.
- Bring biotechnology research closer to secondary school teachers and students.
The role of Ibercivis
Ibercivis developed the image analysis app, hosted on SOCIENTIZE’s PyBossa platform, and promoted it among its community. It also trained secondary school teachers to use it in the classroom and published two scientific papers on the experience with the research team.
Our activities
- Development of the web app for analysing cell images.
- Training for Biology teachers, such as the session held in September 2013 at the Escola Secundária José Falcão in Coimbra (Portugal), with 11 teachers.
- A day for secondary school teachers and students at Etopia (Zaragoza) in December 2014, with the participation of the principal investigator.
- Publication of the papers ‘A case of citizen science for cell biology images analysis’ (VII Brazilian e-Science Workshop, 2013) and ‘Cell images analysis as a case of citizen science for advanced education laboratory and school, back and forth’ (INTED, 2013).
Project details
Type of project
European
Duration
Since 2013
Consortium
BIFI (University of Zaragoza) and Fundación Ibercivis, as part of the European project SOCIENTIZE
Area
Citizen science research