How Crowdfunding is helping to fight the Zika Virus
Crowdfunding has fundamentally changed the modern business model over the last years. Now it is also funding the next wave of scientific research. In particular one urgent problem has attracted a lot of attention recently. The question is how to tackle the spread of the Zika infection, which is alarmingly rising worldwide and presumably transmitted by a mosquito-borne virus to humans. While the infection often causes no or only mild symptoms in adults, world health officials concluded that infection with the Zika virus during pregnancy causes the birth defect microcephaly, which leads to a mis-development of the brain in babies. However there is no clear understanding so far how Zika spreads nor is there any vaccine or specific treatment yet. Over the last months several Crowdfunding campaigns have emerged to help to close the gap for potential and promising, but unfunded Zika research projects.
In particular science crowdfunding platforms such as experiment.com allow backers to fund directly to the scientists, so eliminating any overhead involved (compared 50-60% when receiving a grant at a university). Projects are reviewed and scientifically approved by the platform team, and scientists share progress, data, and results directly with backers, many widely available as open access and citeable. Several research campaigns try to tackle the Zika problem and are currently asking for your help.
One important first step is to find a solution for rapid Zika monitoring, which is addressed by a research team at the Smith College with a funding goal of $5k on experiment.com (video below). Their method takes advantage of the nasty habit that mosquitoes sample human blood and thus screening viral infection level in mosquitoes allows us to infer the infection level in humans. This can be used to not only screen for Zika, but ultimately many mosquito-borne diseases. With the rapid spread of Zika virus, and the extremely high likelihood of spread of the virus globally, designing a simple, non-invasive, rapid screening method is essential to understanding where the virus is spreading and who is at risk of the disease.
To date, no drugs or vaccines are available to treat patients infected with Zika virus. This project by a research team at the University of Maryland at Baltimore proposes to use a previously developed method for identifying effective drug compounds using yeast as a model organism. Given the lack of treatment options available, this project on experiment.com (funding goal of $5.4k) has the potential to make major contributions to the way we treat Zika virus in humans.
One important question is whether the or Zika virus replicate in neural cells or not? Despite the association between increased number of babies being born with microencephaly in areas where the virus has rapidly spread, we have no knowledge yet on how Zika might affect fetal neuron cells and therefore cause these brain abnormalities. This crowdfunding project (funding goal $2k, see video below) by researchers at Central Michigan University College of Medicine aims to take the important first steps towards this understanding by testing how the virus might affect fetal neurons in cell culture set ups.
Another research team at the Middle Tennessee State University aims to answer the question if changes in the Zika NS1 protein are fueling the spread of Zika in the Americas? The team builds upon ongoing research on antibody dependent enhancement, through which circulating antibodies bind to the newly infecting virus but do not neutralize infection. Their idea is that the viral proteins they have found in dengue and Ebola contribute to the spread and severity of these viruses and to investigate if this is also true for Zika. The funding goal for their project on experiment.com is $5k.
While crowdfunding certainly can't replace state and institutional funding for research, it can potentially close the funding gap for promising projects. As a backer, you'll be able to see how much of a scientific impact you've made. For scientists, crowdfunding provides not only financial means but also a new possibility to outreach to the public and to gauge their research impact on society.