Author: Christian Velten

In his today’s newspaper column Sebastian Turner 1, initiator of the Falling Walls Conference 2 (“leading thinkers at the intellectual frontier” ), writes about the lack of qualified professionals in Germany. As part of that he mentions studies done by Manfred Prenzel 3 from the Munich Technical University, that are worth to also be shared with the English-speaking knowledge community. While studying the German school system, Manfred Prenzel found that for 42% of the investigated students one year at school did not result in learning advancements. They had exactly the same knowledge and skills as 12 months before. Manfred Prenzel…

From time to time, the team I proudly belong to does some customer surveys to optimize our inhouse services. One request we consistently get is the need for a live online chat as extension of our customer support portfolio. This is an understandable wish, as the advantages of live support and communication by live chat are evident. Time for a testimony. Dear reader, I apologize if you are one of the sufferers and ask to kindly not take it personally, but to very honest … I usually switch the preinstalled text chat tools off. Why? Because they are just inefficient…

Please forgive a best-ager this melancholic flashback. But one of the most inspiring projects during my career was the successful migration of a business publication from print to online around the turn of the millennium. “Inside-Lifescience” was a multi-channel online-magazine covering latest news and trends in life science, pharma and biotechnology. But let’s start with the roots. The publication was originally developed in early 1999 by a leading German publisher of specialized journals in the fields of life sciences/medicine and the information broker business that I had just founded. The intention of the publisher was to establish a periodical information…

Do you know the “Society for Participatory Medicine”? They claim that the internet brings patients together with information and with each other, and by that is revolutionizing the relationship between patient and health care providers. David deBronkart, or better known as “e-patient Dave” was diagnosed in January 2007 with kidney cancer at a very late stage. Odds were stacked against him; with tumors in both lungs, several bones, and muscle tissue. He received great treatment and after removing the extensive mess, and by means of therapy was able to fight through and win the battle over his cancer. His last…

Journalists are mediators. And they are translators. Take me as an example. It is my job as a scientific journalist to translate scientific contents to the public so that people can understand what things like “cloning” and “genetic engineering” are. And, well, I am trying my best and it truly is an advantage for me to be an educated molecular biologist. I do understand scientific subjects as well as the technical terminology of the biosciences. But what’s about my non-scientific colleagues? If a standard magazine journalists is in duty to write about – let’s say – Dolly the sheep, does…

Within two weeks in November 2010, I conceived the “Drug Intelligence Report” concept (360° view on a product) for Novartis Global Medical Affairs. The mission was to provide senior management with a daily-basis full picture view on Novartis products. Factually, the general situation at Novartis at that time was a high fragmentation of internal information sources and services, so that colleagues quite often had to spend considerable time with gathering information themselves. The core principle of the Drug Intelligence Report concept was to provide a single location where all information sources could be accessed in a consolidated and integrated way. The…

Medical microbiologists and hygiene experts are warning against the excessive use of antibiotics for years now. They observe more and more resistances which have been forced by the constant misuse of antibiotics. Now, a July 2002 article in the online issue of the journal New Scientist reported that vancomycin – one of the final weapons in the fight against infectious bacteria – lost his power. A strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is insensitive to vancomycin-treatment was found by medical staff in a hospital in Michigan (USA). Furthermore, VRSA strains (vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) already turned up in Japan. Bacteria are distributing…

Let’s start with a joke. “What are three Germans doing that you have put into one room? – Founding an association!” In Germany we have associations for everything in the smallest village. Associations of hen breeders, associations of stamp collectors, associations of local singers, associations of hobby gardeners, associations of wine drinkers, associations of The Kelly Family concert visitors, and so on. Since late 2001 we additionally have the German Society for Proteome Research (DGPF), whose very first founding charter was wrote down on a beer mat (well, we are in Germany, aren’t we). The foundation of the DGPF by…

Well, honestly, things are on the move these days. Scientists and publishers are discussing new ways of publishing scientific results. EMBO starts an initiative to set up a platform that will provide services relating to access and retrieval of digital information in the life sciences, ranging from bibliographic or factual data to published full text – E-BioSci. Even database publishers draw nearer academic institutions to promote their content products. Last week scientists and information providers met at the 8th annual meeting of the German Information and Communication Initiative of the Learned Societies entitled “Open Systems for the Communication in Science…

In 2003 I had the opportunity to talk to Prof. Dr. Gottfried Schatz, at that time President of the Swiss Science and Technology Council, at the Handelsblatt-conference “Trends in Biotechnology” in Vienna, where Gottfried Schatz had held a lecture about research barriers within Europe. Gottfried Schatz offensively criticized that the European systems of university education and research funding hinder the development of scientific excellence. In his view, money for research – by working after the principle of discriminate all-round distribution – was too broadly scattered instead of promoting purposefully. Permanent academic positions and the rigid hierarchy structures at European universities…