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Crowdsourced Coders Take On Immunology Big Data

Posted by Soulskill on from the still-no-cure-for-cancer-oh-wait dept.

ewenc writes "Mercenary computer coders are helping scientists cope with the deluge of data pouring out of research labs. A contest to write software to analyze immune-system genes garnered more than 100 entries, including many that vastly outperformed existing programs. The US$6,000 contest was launched by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School, both in Boston, Massachusetts. TopCoder.com, a community of more than 400,000 coders who compete in programming competitions, hosted the contest. The results are described in a letter published this week in Nature Biotechnology."

8 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Genes as strings by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    With the help of employees at TopCoder.com, Guinan’s team created a contest that expressed the problem in generic, non-biological terms, such as strings and sub-strings instead of gene sequences and gene segments.

    That's funny, because I can't remember that any other approach than a stringological one has ever been used.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  2. Re:paywalled? by Verloc · · Score: 3, Informative

    try this

    http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/topcoders-open-community-challenge-process-yields-970-fold-increase-in-speed-for-big-data-genomics-sequencing-algorithm-190258111.html

  3. Crowdsource Coding? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Next up on Stack Overflow:

    Can some1 pls post the codes for in generic, non-biological terms, such as strings and sub-strings instead of gene sequences and gene segments. full codes pls email me at topcodersplspostfullcodes@hotmail.com

    What a fuckin' scam...FTFA

    The US$6,000 contest was launched by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School, both in Boston, ....

    Their contest ran for two weeks and awarded weekly $500 prizes to top performers.

    In total, 122 people submitted computer programs to characterize the genes involved in immune responses. Half of the entrants were professional computer programmers, yet none worked as computational biologists. Contestants spent an average of 22 hours on the problem, accumulating a total of nearly 2,700 hours of development time.

    Who do you want to bet owns the copyright?

    How about open source instead of $6000 tossed at a starving pack of desperate coders to solve "Big Data" problems for them.

    1. Re:Crowdsource Coding? by thoughtlover · · Score: 2

      Exactly what I was thinking! In the world of the graphic artist, you see this shit a lot... It's called 'spec work' and it's the reason that there's fewer and fewer good-paying graphics positions out there. Hungry artists make logos, interfaces, and designs with the hope that their submission will be chosen. Who wins? The person on the receiving end. What a fucking joke. Seriously people, DO NOT do work for free! This is reminding me of the recent post where the submitter asks, "How much should I reveal in an interview" --Really?? I had no idea that people were becoming that scummy (read: greedy) that they give people the false hope of a job while trying to fish answers out of them to help them with their problem.

      --
      No sig for you! Come back one year!
  4. not much return by v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's too bad the winning entry, at 970x the speed of the algo it replaced, only received $6k. Surely this was worth a lot more to the eggheads than that? You'd have difficulty contracting even simple, low grade code for that amount?

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  5. Re:not much return? think again. by Kozz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's too bad the winning entry, at 970x the speed of the algo it replaced, only received $6k. Surely this was worth a lot more to the eggheads than that? You'd have difficulty contracting even simple, low grade code for that amount?

    I think you're overlooking the fact that a coder who wins the contest gets something far more valuable: a demonstrable proof of one's mettle and a fairly admirable accomplishment that can only pay dividends for years to come when they're hired by a company who pays them what they're really worth.

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    I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
  6. Re:not much return? think again. by v1 · · Score: 2

    I think you're overlooking the fact that a coder who wins the contest gets something far more valuable: a demonstrable proof of one's mettle and a fairly admirable accomplishment that can only pay dividends for years to come when they're hired by a company who pays them what they're really worth.

    true, but in the short-term, bragging rights and resume' bullet points don't pay the bills.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  7. how lond have you worked there? by decora · · Score: 2

    in the public sector, your dick is measured by how big your budget is. why the fuck would you want to spend LESS money than you did last year? then your budget gets cut - not only do you have to fire some people, you destroy any chance of advancing up the hierarchy. not only that, you dont have anyone to sue if the 'solution' is behind schedule or doesnt work or, in healthcare, kills someone (Therac 25 anyone?).

    Also, you typically get kickbacks from vendors for 'implementing' their 'solution' after a 'careful decision process involving all the stakeholders'.

    The only people who believe in this open stuff are the nutcases like, you know, doctors and scientists. What the fuck do they know?