Up at 5AM: The 5AM Solutions Blog

Welcome to the 2nd issue of the Biobanking Monthly Pulse. Find some of the latest biobanking and research news items from around the web. This months roundup includes some exciting articles such as:

The health seeker is any person aware of his or her motivation to improve his or her health, whether sick or not. Health seeking is the natural pursuit of one’s appropriate balance of well-being, the continuous moving toward a person’s own centre and recognition of “normal” health. For some, normal is just not feeling any symptoms; for others, it may be achieving the physical performance of an Olympian. (Definition from Design for Care, FAQ)   Either way, health seeking is a process view based on both behavior and one’s inner experience of “storing health,” it is not an identity.

Alan Kay introduced an idea that the best way to predict the future is to invent in. 5AM takes this idea seriously, continuously honing our Glassbox methodology to empower our customers to drive and receive the change they want. A common perception is that people resist change. We have found that people resist what they perceive as threats. The ability to change is to address the threats (aka risks) by answering five key questions. Legacy systems offer a fine example.

Craig Venter, the scientist who made a name for himself more than a decade ago by challenging the NIH-funded Human Genome Project, has a new venture. Last week he announced Human Longevity, Inc. The company, according to their press release, is “focused on extending the healthy, high performance human life span” and is going to “tackle the diseases associated with aging-related human biological decline”.

In industries, such as in healthcare and the life-sciences where complex information is distilled, compared, reanalyzed, and repurposed, visualization and user experience are essential. With the ever-growing number of projects aiming to make sense of the vast amounts data and the decreasing cost of DNA sequencing, it is more important than ever to stay current with the latest methods and practices in UX design and data visualization techniques and engage the community for feedback. This is why 5AM has started the UX Design and Dataviz for Life curated news site.

This was the fourth time I've attended the Conference on Semantics in Healthcare and Life Sciences (CSHALS), and every time I come back with new ideas. This conference has a much greater emphasis on implementation than in the past. Considering that this conference has been going for seven years, that means a very clear evolution from its more speculative origins. Organized by the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), it's perhaps the best blend I've seen of people from industry and academia centered around applying semantic technologies and strategies to biomedical research.