Genomics Blog

National Biotechnology Week took place from September 17^th to the 24^th and while it never became a trending topic across Twitter's sphere of influence it did get some of attention.
140 characters posts were tweeted and re-tweeted across the system numerous times during the week and Genome Alberta was in the forefront and got some special mentions from BIOTECanada for our efforts. In twitter-speak the "hashtag" for the week was #NBW2010. Anything that was posted about National Biotech Week would be instantly searchable while anything without #NBW2010 would easily be lost in the millions of tweets posted every day.
What is perhaps most notable about the list is the lack of an Alberta presence much beyond what Genome Alberta posted. I used our @GenomeAlberta and @mikesgene  accounts to re-tweet many of the postings that appeared, posted every video and story I could find on ourGenOmics site, and added many of the events to our calendar. You'll find Ministers from several provinces in those videos on GenOmics or in the links below, and you'll even notice in this list that Glen Murray, Minister of Research & Innovation for Ontario does his own tweeting.  Canada still has to catch up with the U.S. when it comes to socia media use and Alberta has to play catch up at the National level.
Check these links and the people connected to them and if you are from Alberta, join in somewhere along the line.


@  Great article on Albert Scardino speech at BioNova even in Halifax http://ow.ly/2Jx48  #NBW2010

@  Our bio-economy is worth $80 billion+ and has job network of 1 million+. See how we celebrated it this week http://ow.ly/2Jv5F  #NBW2010

@  Interesting answers pouring in to our question of the day, bottom right at http://ow.ly/2Jp0X  #NBW2010

@  Thx to #NBW2010 National Partners: @Amgen Canada, @Pfizer_News Canada,@GenzymeCorp Canada, @agbiotech, Sanofi Pasteur Ltd, Biovail Corp

@  Last day of Canada's #NBW2010, let us know: did you learn anything about biotech this week?

@  Last day! - Win art made from your DNA by trying this Genome Atlantic quiz - http://ow.ly/2JiQO  #NBW2010

@  Transcript: @Glen4TC's comments at Queen's Park yesterday about National Biotech Week http://ow.ly/2Jih7  #NBW2010

@  CN Tower is lit up as the iBoL (International Barcode of Life). A Canadian led initiative to identify & record the DNA of each species

@  easy question: What discovery were Watson and Crick responsible for? Let us know at http://ow.ly/2Ji6j  #NBW2010

@  Last Friday, National Post published a special supplement on biotechnology in Canada. Check it out online here http://ow.ly/2J0YK  #NBW2010

@  Just voted! @BIOTECanadaNBW Interesting answers pouring in to our question of the day, bottom right at http://ow.ly/2Jp0X  #NBW2010

@  #NBW2010 ended last week, but see news in Hot Topics and photos/videos in our gallery. Thanks everyone! http://ow.ly/2LAHm  

@  Great Video - National Biotechnology Week Launch by @lifesciences_bc http://ow.ly/2LO0K  #NBW2010

@  #NBW2010 ended last week, but see news in Hot Topics and photos/videos in our gallery. Thanks everyone! http://ow.ly/2LAHu  

Here are some of the people who posted, re-posted, and generally gave the week some online profile with the tweets listed above:

@Christine_TVG is Christine Bennett from Santa Cruz, California. She is Assistant Conference Director, TVG which produces BioPartnering conferences that connect innovators and leaders in the global life science industry 
@CLSD is all about Canada's life sciences industry from BIOTECanada, the national industry association 
@crossborderbio is Jeremy Grushcow Ph.D, J.D. from Toronto, Ontario, practicing corporate law at Ogilvy Renault LLP 
@DivaBiotech is Ruby Gadelrab who is based in Silicon Valley. She describes herself as a Diva in Biotech Marketing, specializing in genomics, cancer research, personalized medicine and personalized genomics. Lover of food, social media and shoes 
@Glen4TC is Glen Murray, Minister of Research & Innovation Ontario, MPP Toronto Centre & Urbanist and who gets his own fingers working those tweets. 
@helenfilipe Adminstration Director, Corporate & Student Development Master of Biotechnoloy, University of Toronto 
@KathyRzeszutek is an Intellectual Property Lawyer based in Vancouver, B.C. 

@MaRSDD MaRS Discovery District is a non-profit innovation centre connecting science, technology and social entrepreneurs with business skills, networks and capital. http://www.marsdd.com/  
@BIOTECanadaNBW is BIOTECanada’s account for National Biotech Week to salute Canada's bio-economy. http://www.imagenenation.ca/  
@NSLifeSciences is the account for BioNova at http://bionova.ca/  
@OntInnovation Ontario Innovation is an initiative from Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. You can find out more at facebook.com/ OntarioInnovation or http://www.mri.gov.on.ca/  
@SRCnews is the account for Saskatchewan Research Council at http://www.src.sk.ca/  
@tfpeterson Tim Peterson is a web strategy consultant/account manager, and social media enthusiast who adds that he is also a snowmobiler, lover of Saskatchewan and time spent with his wife

And as usual on Twitter Snips we also have a selection of some other interesting tweets and twits we have come across over the last 2 weeks.

The science community has been slow to pick up on most forms of social media. Where you do find scientists poking around in the social media world though, there are some pretty good success stories, some beautiful failures and lots that lie somewhere in between. Many scientists and researchers have embraced Twitter, not to share thoughts on what they had for lunch, but to share quick ideas, links to research, and to advocate for funding.  Our social media efforts including our GenOmics application will be part of a discussion called  Experiments in new media: Beautiful failures and startling successes   at the U.S. National Association of Science Writers Annual General Meeting and Conference at Yale this November. I'll be on that panel and like to think we won't fall into the 'beautiful failures' category,  but why not visit the site at http://facebook.genomealberta.ca - just to make sure.
As @mikesgene and @genomealberta we follow or are followed by a variety of reseachers, science writers, and PR people involved in the science or research sectors. Every couple of weeks we bring you a few highlights from what we have found among the many postings. The links are safe and we generally try to make sure the people behind the posts have a credible pedigree.







@AccessDNA Master gene-shuffler makes us all different http://ow.ly/2Bdhc 

@andrewhessel Synthetic microbes a growing security threat? ICT has 35 year head start over genetics. http://bit.ly/aBXoYj 

@BiologyAnswers What are mutagenic agents? http://bit.ly/cGSjIZ 

@Caanz Well that's a relief: RT @NASA: Two small asteroids safely pass Earth today. Check out details at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov

@digiphile  "#Gov20: D.C. Helps Other Gov'ts Learn to Open Up" @eyeseast http://to.pbs.org/dkCz7A  #opengov #g2s #smgov

@genomicslawyer GLR Post: Getting Serious About Personal Genomics' Risks: http://bit.ly/bczqcZ 

@hillaryrosner Eerily apocalyptic pics from the #boulderfire, via Denver Post: http://bit.ly/dor3vm 

@idtdna Stanford students learn what's in their genes http://ow.ly/2B8im

@JennyRohn Scientists, engineers and supporters thereof, march to preserve your funding on Central London 9 Oct! http://bit.ly/98hbP8  #scienceisvital 

@LATimeshealth Researchers uncover the role of testosterone in business deals http://lat.ms/axXDRT 

@LouiseJJohnson UK has 1% of world's population; produces 8% of world’s sci papers, gets 12% of citations. Howzat for "more with less"?

@moorejh blogged about our new #PSB paper on human #microbiome #visualization. #infoviz #infovis http://compgen.blogspot.com/  

@phylogenomics Next up - Julie Segre from NHGRI on the human skin microbiome #

@ralphmercer The emergence of “new media” and “social media" the begining http://bit.ly/b6ttH3  

@Sagebio RT @mikesgene: People want to be asked before sharing genetic data, study finds http://bit.ly/be81S

 @Sheril_ Best American Science Writing 2010 Is Out! http://tinyurl.com/2enthqf  (with a contribution from CM & I)