The quest for expanding avenues of research with greater cost efficiency has been perennial. For making research thrive, greater access to technologies and resources is a basic prerequisite. That search now seems to have been answered.
The launch of an online marketplace named clustermarket has dawned a "science on demand" outlet with resources ready for rent.
It opened up a new path for companies and scientists to source expertise, lab space, and equipment beyond their institutions.
Ensuring liberal access and decentralization of resources, clustermarket is positioning as a savior in boosting cost efficiency, speed, and broader participation in research projects.
Launched in the UK, in partnership with Merck Accelerator, clustermarket is Britain's first online marketplace aiming the grassroots promotion of scientific research expansion and "access for all" in life sciences.
Science On Demand
This "science on demand" online platform has drawn inspiration from the AirBnB model and targets UK science administrators, experts, and institutions, with essential technologies on rent including equipment, software, infrastructure, and services.
Setting the initial focus on life sciences, the e-market platform wants to make research and development more affordable and less time-consuming.
The expanded access for research resources will positively impact the functioning of start-ups in making them more innovative. The trend of high costs smothering start-ups will be waning.
"Before clustermarket, a scientist who required a mass spectrometer (a piece of equipment most commonly used in life science research) would have had to pay up to half a million GPB on top of other equipment needed," said CEO Johannes Solzbach.
Now, clustermarket will offer the equipment on demand for enabling more research and breaking barriers to entry. The e-marketplace is a frontrunner in the democratization of scientific research which is a monopoly of big institutions and corporations.
"By launching clustermarket today we have initiated change in the research process, making it faster and affordable, and creating a better outlook for all in the industry by providing a platform for collaboration and innovation," added Solzbach.
High Cost Of Research
When it comes to the U.S., the research funding agencies are mostly backed by the federal government outfits such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) for biomedical research and the National Science Foundation (NSF) for non-biomedical areas.
There are also private organizations, venture capital, and private industry-supporting research. According to the NIH sources, only one in five grant applications get funding and it takes close to a year from the time of application to the actual funding.
In any research project, the bulk of the budget goes into laboratory requirements that can be divided into the following segments.
- Major equipment
- Personnel
- Supplies or Consumables
In equipment, the requirement ranges from refrigerators, cell culture hoods, centrifuges, PCR machines, to highly expensive microscopes and flow cytometers.
The expensive instrument also jacks up maintenance costs, which will be 10 to 15 percent of the equipment's acquisition costs on a yearly basis.
The personnel costs are spread into the salaries and expenses incurred by graduate, undergraduate students, post-doctoral fellows and laboratory technicians among others. A post-doc needs to be paid a fellowship or teaching assistantships. The budget for lab supplies is another high-cost area.
Good money is needed in paying for the materials used in a lab, be it pipette tips, ELISA kits, and antibodies. These consumables cost at least $20,000 per year depending on the number of people.
Easy Hiring Of Data Scientists
Meanwhile, a startup in London has devised a new model to make the hiring of scientists, especially data scientists an easy exercise with the Uber-like model.
Launched by Pivigo, the marketplace aims to help small companies to hire researchers on a project basis. Many small companies are unable to afford an in-house data scientist or expensive consulting firms.
"These firms typically don't have any analytic skills in-house and they don't have huge budgets to spend for KPMG or Accenture to come in and do a big, expensive project," said Kim Nilsson, Pivigo's chief executive officer.
The startup is ready to help small firms as they have 1,500 data scientists on their rolls for specific projects. The firm was into training researchers hired by clients like KPMG, Barclays, Marks & Spencer, and Royal Mail.
