October 2017 Discover

JACKSON SOLWAY

1616 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COMDISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

THE CRUX

Q&A

LIKE MANY UNDERGRADS

IN SCIENCE FIELDS,

CINDY WU was intrigued by an

academic career in research. After

the biology major graduated

in 2011, she worked as a research

assistant at the University of

Washington in Seattle, her alma

mater. While there, she wanted to

repurpose a treatment for anthrax

to help clear up staph infections,

but wasn’t sure how to get money

for her idea. When she approached

her adviser about it, Wu recalls he

had this to say: “The system doesn’t

fund people like you: The amount

of money you need is too small, and

you don’t have enough preliminary

data to make a case.”

Ordinarily, researchers in the U.S.

apply for federal grants through

agencies such as the National

Institutes of Health (NIH) or the

National Science Foundation (NSF).

But only a fraction of proposals get

funded, and it might take months

to receive the money.

Although her adviser,

bioengineer James Bryers,

eventually funneled money from

another grant to Wu’s project,

she wondered how many

scientific ideas weren’t

pursued because of a

lack of funding. So she

collaborated with fellow

UW alumnus Denny Luan

to found Experiment —

an online crowdfunding

platform like Kickstarter,

but for scientists. (And

as for Wu’s staph infection

work, she started collecting

data but left Bryers’ lab

before it was finished.)

Since its 2012 launch,

Experiment has supported

over 700 projects, and

backers — other researchers,

research institutes and citizens

— have cumulatively pledged

more than $7 million toward

those ideas, like a virtual

reality treatment for kids with

attention deficit/hyperactivity

disorder, and sequencing the

genome of Azolla, a plant that

could help boost crop yields.

Wu spoke with Discover about

Experiment and how it fits into

today’s climate of financing science.

Q 

What aspect of Experiment

do you think has the most

potential?

A 

I’m most excited about

when the majority of

researchers on Experiment can

openly share how science is

done. So any other human could

come in, change one variable

and do another experiment on

Experiment. For instance, I can

run a project where I delete a

gene in yeast to turn it from white

to red. Then, someone else can

tweak a project like that and add

a gene to make their yeast smell

like bananas. I think that’s where

the platform can be the most

powerful — that’s where we can

get to a world where anyone can

do science.

Q 

What sort of criticisms has

Experiment received?

A 

Some people say it will

never work, it will never

replace the government. But

we’re not trying to replace the

government. I don’t think what

we’re doing is any different

from what’s already being

done — foundations are always

giving money to specific areas

of research. We’re just making it

easier for people to do that. What

we’re doing is enabling people to

get connected faster.

Q 

We’re hearing about the

proposed budget slashes to

NIH and NSF. How are scientists

reacting, and how do you see

Experiment responding to

researchers’ needs?

A 

The general sentiment

is scientists are really

concerned, and they don’t really

know what to do. But I don’t

know that the NIH and NSF

budgets impact how scientists use

Experiment. These agencies are

good for us because without them,

there wouldn’t be an ecosystem

of scientists who can devote their

whole careers to research. The way

I look at it is there’s a funnel of

people who want to do science,

and Experiment is just making that

funnel a lot bigger.  WUDAN YAN

Group Effort

A scientist creates a crowdfunding

platform for other researchers.