Biological Video Protocols on JoVE: Online Journal of Visualized Experiments

At last there is an almost perfect solution for life scientists to share video protocols and insider tricks to learn techniques and repeat experiments properly. Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is a newly founded and FREE online research journal that publishes video-articles on biological experiments (video-protocols). It is an independent project by 2 people, Moshe Pritsker (postdoc at Harvard Medical School) and Nikita Bernstein (Web application developer). Moshe says: “As a biologist personally suffering from written “protocols”, I had this idea for some years, but couldn’t do it because was busy with my PhD studies at Princeton. Two months ago, Nikita and I have began implement it practically, as a research publication.” On JoVE Video-articles include step-by-step instructions on experiments, and short discussions by experts describing possible technical problems and modifications. JoVE employs the OPEN-SOURCE model: submission is free, and all video-articles published are freely available online. First issue is of November 30, 2006. JoVE invites article submissions in all areas of biology and its editorial board includes a number of distinguished scientists, really. Moshe highlights: “A video-based approach is employed to allow for explicit demonstration on “how experiments are really done”, which remains unclear or misinterpreted from traditional publications in print. This is to increase reproducibility and decrease the traditionally high failure rate of biological studies. This approach can be especially important for scientific fields where experimental procedures are highly sensitive and difficult for standardization, e.g. neurobiology or stem cell biology. The JoVE’s approach is also expected to facilitate adoption of new technologies, e.g. genomics and proteomics, and thus lead to significant savings in time in resources in the academic and industrial research. In addition, visualization significantly reduce the language barrier, which is especially important for non-native English speakers, abroad and in US where they comprise more than 50% of staff in many academic and industry laboratories.”
Permalinks of videos: Monitoring actin disassembly with timelapse microscopy by Hao Yuan Kueh.
Human ES cells: starting culture from frozen cells by Kevin Eggan, John Dimos, Erin Trish.
My only critical comment is the presentation form: although we cannot expect experimental scientists to behave like professional actors, some good soundtrack and better video performance will definitely help to popularize the issue, diminish the accidental “boredom” factor and increase the chance of usability for educational purposes.
Thanks to Moshe Pritsker for the story and the background material.