Hard Cell: A Citizen Science Game for Pathology Data Analysis (v1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Hard Cell: A Cancer Research UK Citizen Science Mobile Game for the Analysis of Molecular Pathology Image Data
IRAS ID
157006
Contact name
Joanna Reynolds
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cancer Research UK
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
157006 , IRAS Project ID
Research summary
Molecular pathology is currently one of the main ways of identifying new biomarkers in cancer research. By taking biopsies from tumour tissue and staining the samples for specific cellular compounds, scientists can see which molecules are elevated in cancerous cells. This information can aid the understanding of the underlying pathobiology of different cancer types.
In spite of advances in computational biology in recent years, no algorithms are currently able to accurately perform the kind of pattern recognition required for image scoring. Thus pathology image analysis remains a task that is best performed by the human eye.
However, for studies comprising several thousand tissue samples it can take trained pathologists months to score all images, making data analysis the key bottleneck in this research area.In this project we will use pathology image data from existing cancer studies and incorporate them into a mobile game format. Members of the public will be asked to identify cells of a specific colour and shape, thereby assisting in scoring pathology images. The game will be made available for download onto mobile devices (i.e. phones and tablets).
The proposed game – Hard Cell – will be developed in collaboration with games developer Chunk. The pathology image data used in the game will be held by the Citizen Science Alliance on their well established platform, Zooniverse.
REC name
North West - Haydock Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NW/1033
Date of REC Opinion
13 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion