{"id":3574,"date":"2016-05-17T09:42:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T16:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mozillascience.org\/?p=3574"},"modified":"2016-05-17T09:42:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T16:42:34","slug":"msl-in-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/mozilla-science\/msl-in-boston\/","title":{"rendered":"MSL on the Road: Boston Open Vis + GET Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of April, the Mozilla Science Lab traveled to Boston, Massachusetts with a few fellows from various Mozilla programs in tow. We went to support the Genomes Environments and Traits conference<\/a> (aka GET Conf) at Harvard Medical School co-organized by our own fellow, Jason Bobe, and we sponsored a few representatives to attend the simultaneous OpenVis<\/a> Conference at the New England Aquarium. The annual GET conference <\/a>brings together leading thinkers to discuss how we measure and understand people and their traits, and OpenVis\u00a0is a two-day\u00a0\u00a0single-track conference centered around the practice of visualizing data on the web; together we thought they championed\u00a0the ethos of open science and open web practice that we so strongly advocate for at Mozilla. Between conferences, we regrouped our fellows (Mozilla Science<\/a>, Tech Exchange, Web Advocacy<\/a>) and staff\u00a0at the Miracle of Science<\/a> and Cambridge Brewing Company<\/a> to talk about the highlights of both conferences, many of which we’ll feature in the following paragraphs along\u00a0with\u00a0ways you can get involved!<\/p>\n

\"whowhere\"<\/p>\n

As an extension to the GET Conference, a symposium called\u00a0GET Labs<\/a> brought together over 20 research studies focused on personalized medicine and open accessible data. Attendees witnessed a series of lightning talks from all participant studies<\/a> followed by a “science fair” where they were invited to sync their Open Humans Account<\/a> with various studies and applications built to engage the broader public in biomedical research. This included studies on the composition of the human\u00a0microbiome (like American Gut<\/a>), on the environmental factors that affect your health (Keeping Pace<\/a>, Personal Exposure Project<\/a>), and various Research Kit<\/a>-based projects leveraging mobile devices to study\u00a0Parkinsons’ symptoms<\/a>, mole mutation<\/a>, fever temperatures<\/a>, and team\u00a0health for athletes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"participatorymeds\"<\/p>\n

Throughout GET, attendees heard from a variety of speakers, some of the most moving including anecdotal vignettes from people who have overcome their own medical illnesses or engaged with them more actively through open data, like Janet Freeman-Daily’s talk on blogging and open communication around\u00a0cancer<\/a>, Steve Keating’s talk on discovering his own tumor through participation in an open research study<\/a>, and Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel’s partner talk on putting themselves through med school to better research Sonia’s susceptability to Prion’s Disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"get-tweet2\"<\/p>\n

On the other side of town, OpenVis Conf dazzled\u00a0with a solid program of awesome talks on data visualization, machine learning, and graphical magic. Here are a few highlights from our attendees:<\/p>\n