[OpenTox] An obituary for Nicki Douglas
Barry Hardy barry.hardy at douglasconnect.comWed Dec 19 13:00:44 CET 2012
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I wrote an obituary for Nicki Douglas for this year's book on the research activities of the SEURAT-1 research cluster whose goal is the replacement of animal experiments with superior scientific methods. Nicki and I both worked on contributing significantly to this project as it got off the ground in 2011. Due to the scientific context this version of an obituary for her was a more work-oriented one than I or she might have written for herself :)! The obituary is located on the last inside page of the book. You can download an electronic copy (high resolution version recommended, see page 374) from the following link: http://www.seurat-1.eu/pages/library/seurat-1-annual-report.php I enclose a copy of the text below here. The book also contains a chapter on ToxBank whose ICT infrastructure is being built upon OpenTox and extensions to it to support omics, assay protocols, and bioinformatics. We are planning to have both European and US OpenTox meetings for the community during 2013. I will be happy to hear about your news and developments, potential to collaborate on new proposals and projects building on OpenTox, and hope you have an enjoyable holidays and successful 2013! best regards Barry Nicola Diane Douglas (1952-2012) Nicola Diane Douglas, known to her family, friends and co-workers as Nicki, was born 27 March 1952 in Barton-on-sea in the UK, the daughter of Charles and Diana Hasemer. She died suddenly and unexpectedly in her home in Zeiningen, Switzerland on 6 February 2012. Due to her father’s work as an airline pilot, she travelled extensively in her youth. She maintained an interest in travel and global issues throughout her life, particularly in the area of animal protection and wildlife conservation. This interest was put into action through initiation and support of research in the development of alternatives to replace animal testing, involvement in activities in Switzerland on animal protection, and participation in wildlife conservation work in Africa. Her early professional life involved photography, journalism, and teaching English as a foreign language, after which she settled down into marketing and communications, following her move to Switzerland in 1975. As part of the country management team in Switzerland for Autodesk (creators of AutoCAD), she was responsible for all marketing activities in multiple languages throughout Europe and the Middle East and worked closely with the company’s virtual corporation of third-party developers. Nicki Douglas and Barry Hardy met in August 1999 and lived and worked closely together as partners in Switzerland from September 2001 until her death in 2012. In 2003 she founded Douglas Connect (DC) as a Swiss SME which specialised in creating and facilitating research communities and networks, collaborative projects and knowledge management. DC created and directed the program activities of the InnovationWell and eCheminfo communities of practice with goals and activities aimed at improving human health and safety and developing new solutions for neglected diseases. DC served as Coordinator of the FP7-supported OpenTox project (www.opentox.org) which developed an Open Source Predictive Toxicology Framework for the management of toxicology data, models and validation. Within SEURAT-1, DC is the current scientific coordinator of the ToxBank infrastructure development project for supporting predictive toxicology and risk assessment (www.toxbank.net). DC is also leading research activities in antimalarial drug design and toxicology for the Scientists Against Malaria project (www.scientistsagainstmalaria.net) which was developed from a pilot within the SYNERGY FP7 ICT project on knowledge-oriented collaboration. In addition to managing the business, Nicki participated hands-on in communications with many scientists involved in the communities and collaborations, and organized numerous meeting and workshop activities, whose success was due to her attention to detail and the social interaction cultivated. In recent years Nicki and Barry have been active in wildlife conservation work in southern Africa including work in Namibia and South Africa with goals to sustain and support wilderness areas and their populations of wildlife. They have been involved in work aimed to develop a new park in Namibia, and participated in lion capture, leopard tracking and African wild dog monitoring. Nicki in particular had a special affection and communication with cats, both domestic and wild. It is planned to establish a foundation in Switzerland which will continue to support similar research and conservation activities in the future. Reference: http://www.seurat-1.eu/pages/library/seurat-1-annual-report.php Barry Hardy PhD Director Douglas Connect GmbH Baermeggenweg 14 4314 Zeiningen Switzerland
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