Within weeks of its launch, the Portiko platform already brings together more than 500 scientists from different specialties who offer their skills for the development of new knowledge. But what exactly is this tool that on X, user Balázs Szigeti describes as a “Tinder for research collaborations”?
Ana Burgos Ruiz, a bioinformatician of Spanish nationality, had the idea of creating Portiko while she was researching how the brain of a fish ages and the data revealed an important finding that she needed to demonstrate with analysis of the animal’s tissues.
The researcher needed to find an expert who mastered a technique of histological cuts in the brain of fish, which help support her discovery of a gene that is related to aging. This search wasn’t easy and motivated her to create Portiko, a digital platform that would connect scientists experts in certain techniques, both laboratory and data analysis.
“In my case there were certain techniques that if I found the person I could validate the data experimentally. It makes no sense for me to try to learn something when there are experts in that,” explains the researcher from Seville.
What is Portiko’s Contribution?
Portiko becomes relevant because the traditional way of finding specialists is through colleagues, attending conferences or identifying a paper in which a technique had been used and sending emails to all the authors to find the right one.
“As easy as creating a Marketplace where if I’m good at analyzing such data I put my skills there, so other researchers can find me easily and backwards,” explains Burgos.
With the help of a programmer who designed the site, Dani Gleba, Portiko was born. Currently, just a few weeks of operation, more than 500 researchers are already registered on the platform, most of them from the United States and Europe.
How does Portiko Work?
First, each researcher opens their own profile with the name of the experiment, analysis or technique in which they are an expert. On the other hand, if in addition to offering his knowledge, the scientist is looking for a specialist with certain skills, when he enters the Portiko site a search bar is displayed in which he can enter the technique he needs.
There you will find that the tool returns the results of several profiles that match your search. To protect the identity of users and avoid gender bias, names or photographs are not displayed, the only thing that appears is the description of the technique in which they are experts and their universities.
“When the person finds a profile that interests them, they click on collaborate, they can write a message and we send the email to this specialist so they can start collaborating. It’s the fastest way,” says Dani Gleba.
The name Portiko, according to Burgos, alludes to the portico structures that were common in the agoras of ancient Greece where philosophers and thinkers used to have discussions.
“Portiko is a way to democratize science because there are laboratories that do not have the same budget as others, but have brilliant ideas,” adds Burgos.
Were you interested in this story? Do you want to publish it? Contact our content editor to learn more marianaleonm@tec.mx.
