Stem cell agency images and information now on Pinterest

We recently pulled together all our beautiful images of stem cells, patient advocates and snazzy science shots and created a virtual scrapbook on Pinterest. Pinterest has mainly been used as a way of collecting ideas for home projects or crafts, but in the past year it’s been picked up by scientific groups as a way of displaying science images. Nature Publishing, for example, unveiled their set of scrapbooks, or boards as they are called on Pinterest, last year (here’s their announcement and links to their boards).

I’ve personally been fascinated by boards providing science project ideas for kids, and by the Pinterest board associated with NIH director Francis Collins’ blog (you can see that here).

The five boards we created are here:

• Stem cell research advances: On this board we’ll be pinning images associated with scientific advances by our grantees. These might be stories in newspapers, press releases or posts on our own blog.
• Stem cell images and infographics: Stem cell science is, among other things, quite beautiful. This board is primarily a compilation of images taken by our grantees, and also infographics that help explain stem cell research.
• Stem cell education and outreach: We hold regular events where we explain our science and progress to members of the public. This board showcases those events and also gives access to images or videos of the events for those who couldn’t attend.
• Stem cell stories of hope: Throughout the year, patients and researchers address our governing board to talk about the need for new therapies in different disease areas. We then post those stories on our website. This board tells their stories.
• Stem cell elevator pitch challenge: We recently challenged our grantees to explain their research in 30 seconds or less in language anybody can understand. We’ve compiled those quick descriptions on this board.

Science on Pinterest is still in its early days. As we see how people interact with our images we’ll be making changes or rearranging our boards to suit the way people are using the site. Feel free to check out our boards and make suggestions. And if you are on Pinterest yourself, start pinning!

A.A.