SCOAP³ partnership map (Image: CERN)
Only four years ago, most publications in High-Energy Physics (HEP) were behind paywalls, only accessible to a limited audience of academics. Today, nearly 90% of scientific articles in this field are available to everyone and authors from anywhere in the world can publish their articles without any financial barriers, all thanks to a collaboration hosted at CERN.
The Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP³) is a global partnership involving 3000 libraries, national funding agencies and research institutions from 43 countries and three intergovernmental organisations. It functions on the basis of a ‘recirculation of funds’ business model, as a tripartite collaboration between libraries, national funding agencies and publishers of HEP journals. By centrally covering the costs involved in providing Open Access, SCOAP³ pays the publishers directly, thus removing subscription fees for individual journals and any expenses scientists might normally incur to publish their articles openly. This way, authors from anywhere in the world publish without any financial burden and retain the copyright of their work. Libraries pay their membership fees to the consortium, re-using funds previously spent on subscription fees for the journals which are now Open Access and member countries contribute according to their scientific output in the field.
Since its launch in 2014, SCOAP³ made more than 21 000 scientific articles published by authors from over 100 countries freely accessible to everyone. “What makes this collaboration work is the long tradition of sharing scientific knowledge amongst HEP researchers as well as CERN’s history of collaborating with other research labs. It is indeed in the Organization’s DNA to support the dissemination of the scientific information,” says Alexander Kohls, operations manager at SCOAP³.
“With the recent addition of journals of the American Physical Society, SCOAP3 has reached an important and encouraging milestone in our attempt to foster access to scientific information, which is the basis of any scientific work. Open Access to publications is but one of several initiatives including access to open data to carry out verifiable research independently,” adds Eckhard Elsen, CERN’s Director for Research and Computing.
By making nearly all HEP articles Open Access, SCOAP³ has also significantly increased the visibility of particle physics research: a recent study shows that the number of article downloads has more than doubled since the articles became Open Access. This means millions of new readers for the scientific literature in the discipline, and most importantly, readers from countries where access to scientific information is often limited.
“Open Access reflects values and goals – such as the widest dissemination of scientific results – that have been enshrined in CERN’s Convention for more than sixty years. I am proud that CERN is committed to continue is strong support of this important Open Access initiative,” says CERN’s Director for International Relations, Charlotte Warakaulle.
SCOAP³’s infrastructure is provided by CERN and governed by its member countries who meet regularly in the SCOAP³ Governing Council. Earlier this year, delegates met to discuss the future of SCOAP³ and the strategy for the next five years. One of the priorities is to get more countries involved in the partnership and to offer more collaboration opportunities. The worldwide financial cooperation is what makes this initiative possible, creating a role model for Open Access.
Due to its unique structure and amazing physicochemical properties including high chemical inertness, large specific surface area, high electric conductivity, mechanical flexibility, and biocompatibility, graphene holds great potential for bioelectronic implants.
One of the prominent uses of graphene in bioelectronics is recording of electrical signals from body parts, such as the heart or brain. Last year’s edition of the largest medical trade fair in the world – MEDICA 2017, featured several exhibits using graphene in biomedicine. Among the exhibits were a brain activity detector for early warning of epileptic seizures, a retinal implant serving as optical prostheses for people who have lost their sight, a brain-computer interface containing graphene electrodes to measure brain activity, and a fully functional robotic hand controlled by a bracelet with graphene sensors.
Illustration: Graphene ocular implants. Source: Graphene transistors for bioelectronics (arXiv)
Preceding these successful demonstrations of technology were years of painstaking scientific research, that bit-by-bit explored the possibilities and advantages of using graphene for bioelectronics. Early work focused on quantifying the interaction of graphene with biological material, such as lipid membranes. It was evident that the addition of tiny amounts of biological material to the surface of graphene would change its properties, i.e. graphene would behave as a biosensor. The most common graphene device used in biosensing is the graphene field effect transistor – GFET. GFET array sensor platforms have also been used to identify malaria-infected red blood cells at the individual cell resolution. Subsequent work showed that one can grow live cells on graphene and monitor their chemical activity via accompanying electrical signals. Both intracellular and extracellular activity was detected, such as cellular excretion and cell membrane’s potential modulation.
Other than serving the important function of registering biological signals, graphene found surprising new applications such as in bone implants. Porous solids made of graphene oxide were found to possess similar mechanical properties and biocompatibility to titanium, a standard bone-replacement material. Using graphite molds, this new material can be shaped into custom complex shapes as desired. And although eyebrows were initially raised about the heat that emanates when power is provided to graphene implants, which could damage the host organism, researchers quickly found a solution to overheating – adding water between graphene and the biological material. A thin layer of water separating the graphene from tissue could save surrounding cells from being fried when an implant is operated.
Taking on the offensive, latest research shows that a layer of vertical graphene flakes on a surface kill harmful bacteria, potentially stopping infections during procedures such as implant surgery. While destroying bacteria, the sharp graphene flakes do not damage human cells because a bacterium is one micrometer in diameter while a human cell is 25 micrometers.
To conclude, graphene is an excellent material for bioelectronics, proven by countless research papers that affirm this application as well as some recent working graphene implant prototypes. Graphene bioelectronics are among the most promising applications of graphene field effect transistors (GFETs), which are driving the growth of the single-layer graphene market.