The XResearch Coalition’s Explore TCM Project Demonstrates Citizen Science’s Potential in China

Passionate citizens help medical researchers create exciting breakthroughs in XResearch’s inaugural project.

BOSTON, MA, USA, December 21, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In January 2018 Explore TCM, a research initiative examining Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) principles whilst searching for new health metrics, was officially launched across mainland China. This month sees the first round of participants successfully complete the study.

On signing up to Explore TCM participants received two wearables; an X1 heart rate monitor and a Huawei wristband. These wearables, accompanied with an app, provided participants with personalized physiological insights through the latest health analysis technology. Across the 9 month study period, every 2 weeks Explore TCM released a new mission for participants to complete. Each mission generated unique physiological data that XResearch’s team of international scientists then analyzed in the hope of both gaining deeper insight into some of the principles of TCM and discovering new metrics to quantify health.

Explore TCM is a key focus of XResearch, a nonprofit organization founded in 2016 comprised of forward-thinking scientists, technologists, and passionate citizens dedicated to furthering health research. It is led by Harvard University’s Center for Dynamical Biomarkers who were finalists in the 2017 Tricorder XPRIZE global competition. XResearch’s core board includes Boston University’s Professor H. Eugene Stanley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Professor Roger Mark, and Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Andrew Ahn and Professor Chung-Kang Peng.

XResearch puts a particular emphasis on Citizen Science, the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research. Explore TCM clearly illustrated this by connecting researchers and participants through crowdsourcing and by providing an avenue for everyday people to donate their physiological data to help the research.

“XResearch’s first project, Explore TCM, aims to quantify one’s general health,” says Professor Peng. “Through Citizen Science techniques we can gain credible insight into the physiology of the human body that we couldn’t necessarily gain otherwise. Explore TCM’s momentum proves there’s curiosity amidst the general public in regards to scientific studies and that is really empowering for the field of Citizen Science moving forward.”

By the end of 2018, Explore TCM will have gathered over 400 million human heartbeats which translate into over 100 thousand hours worth of physiological data. “I am hopeful that Citizen Science can contribute to more regular scientific breakthroughs than traditional realms of research,” says Professor Peng. “We are already seeing signs that Citizen Science can be far more efficient in terms of time and scale when compared with other methods.”

Explore TCM has been developed in association with XResearch’s main partner Kiipo, a health-technology company based in Taipei, along with tech-giants Huawei and Largan. “It’s great to have our first group of Explore TCM participants on the verge of completing the study,” says Kiipo’s co-founder Jordan Masys. “It represents a huge milestone for the project. I’m incredibly thankful to all our participants who came together to make this happen and I want to congratulate them on their achievements.”

For Jordan, the engagement of participants has been particularly pleasing. “We are proud to have over 70% of our participants constantly engaged with the Explore TCM project. Nine months is a decent length of time to have participants continuously involved. Our relatively high engagement rate goes to show how determined people are to help move health science forward.”

In the coming months, five more groups from the Explore TCM community will complete the study. These groups include participants from notable colleges such as Guangdong Medical University in southern China. “Seeing people finish the study and providing researchers with complete sets of real-world data to analyze is really rewarding,” says Jordan. “We are all about generating breakthroughs in health research. Having our participants succeed gives our research initiatives greater chances to succeed. It’s been amazing seeing Citizen Science at work.”

XResearch hopes to have a follow-up project to Explore TCM in action soon.

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About XResearch: Led by Harvard Medical School’s Center for Dynamical Biomarkers, the non-profit XResearch Coalition is a collection of forward-thinking scientists, technologists, and passionate citizens dedicated to furthering health and medical research through large-scale innovative projects. In the spirit of Citizen Science, the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research, they look to empower everyday people to contribute in moving health science forward.

Learn more about Explore TCM at https://www.xresearch.co/explore-tcm.html
Learn more about XResearch at https://www.xresearch.co/
Email: info@xresearch.co

About Kiipo: Based in Taipei, Kiipo is a health-technology company that is founded on the principle that everyone has a fundamental right to a healthy life. They bridge the gap between cutting-edge medical breakthroughs and people, striving to make the most advanced health technology available to everyone in the world. Their current ecosystem of services includes projects to increase access to emergency care, tools to increase the quality of care, and research and development initiatives to facilitate scientific breakthroughs.

Learn more at https://www.kiipo.com

Jessica Ianniciello
XResearch Coalition
+886-2365-1164
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