In this issue, our section “Coming to America” is dedicated to the introduction of PrometeoNetwork, a newborn, dynamic community that bonds a large number of people involved in Life Sciences at different levels. Davide Gianni, (Research Associate) Biotechnician at the Scripps Research Institute of San Diego (CA) and active member of PrometeoNetwork, will talk about the Network and his increasing success.
Dr. Gianni, could you explain briefly what PrometeoNetwork is and how was it born?
It was conceived by the strong motivation of special individuals, like Giovanni Abbadessa and Francesco Lotti, who along with other Italian colleagues in the States decided to create a network to embrace all the Life Sciences doctors and researchers to facilitate their communication by shortening the geographical distances using the World Wide Web. Often, it is very complicated to connect the clinical and the research fields, and to connect scientists that operate in the same field but in different parts of the planet. Nowadays, in contrast, the research can be competitive only if there are constant exchanges at an international level.
What this does exactly mean?
The members of the Network can use an innovative networking software, developed along with Within3, that allows members to find (peers) other colleagues not only through a search by first or last name (already possible with other software) but also through Institutions of appointment, clinical trials, scientific interests or any other keywords present in the member’s profile. All of it is possible only with PrometeoNetwork. After one year of operation, members can connect, using this software to almost 4,000 members, this result exceeds all our expectations!In addition, it is possible to create contacts between members through an internal mail system, and recently a forum has been created to allow each member to post questions on-line to the entire community.
Who manages the portal and how?
The operational base of PrometeoNetwork is located in Philadelphia (PA), but it is managed by several people, some of them are located in different cities in the States and others in Italy. The community is composed by different sub-groups, divided by field, nationality, location, and more. For example, I am the manager of the US West Coast Group, and my role is not only to supervise the operations of my group’s members, but also, mainly, consists of a very intense effort in planning activities in coordination with the other groups. At this time, we are working on putting together some financial contributions to our members that are going to scientific congresses, and on a daily basis we disclose job offers in Institutions and companies all over the world.
Can you describe the profile of your average member? Do you also have famous people in your community?
The members are typically doctors and scientists, at different levels: we have academic researchers, technicians, doctors, clinical scientists, and biotechnicians. Without disclosing the names, I can tell you that some of my group’s members through the work published in international distinguished scientific journals now cover prestigious positions in world’s leading Institutions. Another important aspect to emphasize is the internationality of the Network: every day we have new members from all over the world, several of them from developing countries, like India, Latin America, and Singapore … regarding Italy, 25% of the community is composed by Italian peers, this is a very important result for our Country, considering that the majority of the managers are in the States.
Can you mention any example of “success story”?
In June, we participated with our booth to the international congress of the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncologist). This helped our oncology group to “take off”, in fact, after our participation to the congress the number of new sign up increase immensely. Recently, Nature published an article written by Fabio Fais, manager of the Nanotechnologies group, which features PrometeoNetwork as the “answer” to the need to promote networking in the scientific world.
Projects for the future?
We are working on the possibility to assign annual scholarships to our member to facilitate the Research.
