SAN DIEGO, Sept. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Assay Depot Inc., the world's leading provider of outsourced scientific services, today announced the launch of the "Make Your Mark" competition for high school students. Created to inspire young people to get involved in science, the Make Your Mark Competition is part of Assay Depot's ongoing series of Open Science Challenges. Proposals are being solicited from individual students, IGEM or STEM science teams or science teachers who have a good idea and want to test it. Winning proposals receive $500 for the project.
"The Open Science movement is about democratizing science and enabling anyone with a good idea to translate that idea into reality," said Kevin Lustig, Assay Depot's CEO. "The current research process is broken, with projects taking years to complete. By leveraging outsourcing and Assay Depot's free software to accelerate science far beyond its current pace, even high school researchers can now do experiments and run entire science projects without needing any laboratory space of their own."
Make Your Mark competitions are being held in numerous cities across the United States. The first competitions will be held in Boston (September 17 - October 19), San Diego and New York (October 1 November 5). Possible proposal topics include science demonstrations, bioart creation or school-based science projects, or the proposal may just be about experimentation for curiosity's sake.
"The Make Your Mark competition is a great way to empower the next generation of citizen and professional scientists," said Joseph Jackson, founder of Biocurious, one of the country's first community DIY-Biology laboratories. "Young people of all backgrounds need to understand that science has changed and that they can make a difference right now."
Applicants submit a 1-page written proposal, a 5-minute video or a 5-slide presentation that explains their hypothesis and research plan. The first awards will be made in November 2012. More information and submission guidelines are located at http://challenge.assaydepot.com/hs-open-science/.
About Assay Depot
Assay Depot is the world's leading provider of outsourced scientific services. The company operates a network of online research marketplaces that dramatically streamline purchases between scientists and more than 8,000 global research vendors. Assay Depot is changing the way life science research is done.
To learn more about Assay Depot's enterprise software, visit http://enterprise.assaydepot.com. To use Assay Depot's free public marketplace, visit http://www.assaydepot.com.
Contact: Kim Richards
1-619-708.4430
krichards@assaydepot.com
SOURCE Assay Depot
