PRESS RELEASE FROM NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
2 February 2009

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Professor Russ B Altman's bioinformatics blog has cinched the Nature Network Science Blogging Challenge 2008 prize. Graduate student Shirley Wu convinced Professor Altman to start his blog, Building Confidence, in response to a call to get a senior scientist blogging.

The Science Blogging Challenge was launched at Nature Network's Science Blogging Conference in London in August 2008. "The ultimate aim is to help scientific blogging gain more momentum and credibility," says Timo Hannay, Publishing Director of Nature.com and one of the Challenge judges. "We hope to inspire senior scientists, like Professor Altman, to blog regularly about their research and views on science."

Russ Altman and Shirley Wu win an invitation to Science Foo Camp 2009 (Sci Foo), the annual invitation-only scientific 'unconference' organized by Nature Publishing Group and O'Reilly and hosted by Google at their headquarters in California. Since Russ and Shirley live nearby, the travel expenses included in their prize will be used to help other deserving individuals, such as attendees from developing countries, to attend Sci Foo '09.

Professor Altman's blog post 'One of my first post-genomic moments' was also selected for Open Lab 08, an anthology of the best scientific blog content of 2008.

Russ Biagio Altman, MD, PhD, is a professor at Stanford University Medical School, where he is chair of the department of Bioengineering and director of the program in Biomedical Informatics. He is a founding member and past president of the International Society for Computational Biology, and has published over 100 journal articles. Shirley Wu is a graduate student in Altman's lab, and has her own blog, I Was Lost But Now I Live Here.

Professor Altman calls Shirley Wu his "blogging angel... who is constantly feeding me excellent ideas". While admitting "blogs are hard!" Altman has blogged at least once a month since starting his Building Confidence blog in September 2008. Posts range from why funding science could help the economy, to the ever-decreasing cost of genotyping and what it could mean for working scientists.

The Science Blogging Challenge was judged by Peter Murray-Rust (University of Cambridge, UK), Cameron Neylon (University of Southampton, UK), Richard P Grant (University of Sydney, Australia) and Timo Hannay of Nature Publishing Group Judging criteria included frequency and quality of posts, and the seniority of the scientist. Nature Network's Senior Editor Corie Lok says, "We thank everyone who entered the Science Blogging Challenge. When scientists share their ideas openly in this way, everyone wins."

Nature Network is Nature Publishing Group's community website to help scientists meet, communicate and collaborate. Nature Network has over 40 active bloggers, who authored 6 of the 50 blog posts selected for Open Lab 08.

For further details of the Science Blogging Challenge, read the announcement on Nascent.

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