Hack The Paper

Scientific discoveries when made open source and easy to understand has led to remarkable moments in mankind’s history. Bill Clinton gave the green light to the U.S. military to stop intentionally scrambling satellite signals, thus paving the way for civilians to use GPS with the same accuracy as the military had long enjoyed. All of the consumer internement underway to make various elements of scientific research more open and collaborative in order to disrupt and impact mankind. May 7, witnessed history being penned as thirteen researchers from Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation chose to “Hack the Paper”.

What is “Hack the Paper?”
Hack the Paper is a movement to change the conversation around science.
It is an initiative to liberate ideas from scientific journals, papers from conferences & research from labs – and bring them to the forefront of conversation, engagement and application for everybody.

Who is this for?
Scientists & the Curious. Scientists present their work in a series of events, in frequent un-conference formats. This is open to students, scientists, academics, professors, individuals, organisations – anyone with an interest in scientific discovery and applied academics.

Who can participate/present in this un-conference?
There is no prior requirement of paper publishing/presentations necessary to be able to share your work here. If your work has been well documented, and you have a story then you can participate.

Why are we doing this?
Progress comes from scientific exploration, and thus it is in everyone’s interest that advancement goes far beyond the current scientific community. We are interested in solving the ‘science storytelling’ problem and making the field more open and accessible to all.

Why should you be a part of this?
If you believe in the power of citizen science, applied research, problem-solving with a purpose and/or open source, this is for you. You will be joining a larger scientific community, dedicated to medical and scientific advancement.

MSMF also houses India’s first technology business incubator within a corporate hospital environment based at the Narayana Health City, Bangalore. This facility has helped nurture an innovation culture among in-house clinicians who were provided an environment to convert some of their research ideas to enterprises and being based in a hospital environment hastens the validation path. Over the last three years there have been several successful enterprises in the areas of medical devices and drug discovery that have been spun out of – Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation. Dr Aditya Chaubey, the Chief Scientific Officer said “The key framework of bringing together clinicians, researchers and technology under the hospital auspice is transforming medical science here.” A combination of providing access to hospital infrastructure and a strong research institute helps a startup leapfrog the ‘valley of death’, often described in the sector as mortality rates among enterprise ideas. Through the platform Hack the Paper, MSMF will create a series of events that help cross pollination of ideas in healthcare among researchers, clinicians, technologists, design engineers and business professionals. It is crucial for an inter-disciplinary team to convene and address some of the healthcare challenges India faces.
Dr Paul Salins, Managing Director of Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation said, “MSMF has been engaging with healthcare technology to identify the right means to reverse the equation of healthcare costs and technology, which has historically seen that any introduction of new or advanced technology increased healthcare delivery costs. India has a unique opportunity to reverse this trend and we believe by creating a cross-pollination among multiple tertiary hospitals across India. We shall be able to attract a multi-disciplinary approach as well build the right structures to promote innovation and make it easy for entrepreneurs to pass the hurdles of idea validation, clinical trials and market access.”

Below is a summary of the researchers who presented at the inaugural session of the event:

• Bonney Lee James : Importance of intra operative detection of lymph node metastasis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
• Dr SumSum Sunny: Detection of pre-oral cancer using mobile phones and Oncogrid platform
• Mohit Srivastava: Dendritic cell-based cancer immunotherapy
• Syeda Lubna: Use of macrophage as immunotherapy
• C. A. Divya: Insulin and its 2 forms of receptors play a very important role in human body to take towards either diabetes or cancer
• Dr. Ritu Raj:Nanotechnology for diagnostic and targeted drug systems for cancer patients
• Sreejeta Mondal:Sensitivity of a novel small molecule developed against Bcl2 (an anti-apoptotic gene) in several haematological cancers
• Ram Bupal Reddy:Cancer treatment, need for personalised treatment
•  Swathi Purighalla:Investigation into communicable disease outbreak of Salmonella Typhi
• Dr. Anuradha Arya:Developing culture system to enable precision medicine in breast cancer
• Raksha Ganesh:Role of hypoxia in Glioblastoma
• Pranali YS:Classification of data and finding bio-markers

The winners were Swati Purighalla and Dr Sumsum Sunny, who will now become ambassadors of the showcasing their science to the non-science world in a language that makes it amenable for multiple user groups shall engage. This will hopefully set-off a movement to transform the nature of science collaboration to lead to innovations that impact patient care across India and the world. MSMF collaborated with Siemens Healthineers and Garage5B , an early stage healthcare investment fund for this for this event.