Bringing ideas to light
The concept of PSIthority began in 2003 when Dr. William Black began assembling a web-based platform to represent our current understanding of a particular gene superfamily.
This platform quickly became the laboratory's knowledgebase and "living review" for our current understanding of the pathophysiological importance of these genes, their gene sequences across species, their transcriptional variations, their polymorphisms, as well as a repository to share our methods for isolation, purification and functional testing of the protein products.
Consequently, this platform became a place where anyone in the world interested in this tiny niche of science could browse to and immediately gain an understanding of these genes, determine this field's current bleeding edge of science, find a recommended reading list for any given gene superfamily member, and most importantly, converse, share and collaborate with our laboratory.
Over time the platform's web presence directly lead to a multitude of exciting and innovative scientific collaborations from around the world. Without it, researchers from all over the United States, China, Japan, Norway, Germany, and South Africa would likely have been ships passing in the night in the formal scientific literature.
It was this realization that lead to the advent of PSIthority. A place where individuals, regardless of their discipline, could have the opportunity to utilize a web-based platform to exhibit their expertise, represent their knowledgebase, find, connect, share and collaborate with colleagues, and use as an innovative tool to simplify and expedite their daily workload without any additional requirement of technical expertise.
PSIthority was designed and built for scientists by scientists with decades of experience in academia, industry, technology and publishing. From the laboratory bench to the board rooms of industrial science and technology corporations, our group has a first-hand understanding of the demands on those that are there now.
From our collective experiences came the PSIthority toolset; tools we only wished we had when we were there; tools that simplify and facilitate the tasks required for the progress of science in today's world.
There is nothing like the frustration incurred when trying to complete a simple task and not being able to find a necessary element to make that task happen. Have you ever misplaced your car keys? Without them, the process of starting your car becomes significantly more difficult.
PSIthority’s designers understand that frustration and therefore, continuously utilize our users' feedback and recommendations to streamline and simplify the platform’s interface.
Our goal is to ensure that using PSIthority is as easy as starting your car (with your car keys!).
The PSIthority platform is designed to be a tool for you to facilitate the advancement of informed and engaged communities. These are your publications, your discussions, your techniques, that precipitate this advancement while growing the spheres of knowledge and making yet unforeseen connections. As such, our platform and our developers are here to serve you.
PSIthority makes it a top priority to maintain a direct communications link between the communities it serves and the developers that built and maintain this platform - whether it is a new feature request or recommendation to improve an old one, or to report a glitch/bug, we will be here in the trenches with you.
Finally! A platform that bridges the gap between fundamental laboratory research and clinical practice!