Back in March, PokerStars was honoured to be invited by Cancer Research UK to participate in its second Citizen Science Project 'GameJam'. PokerStars employees joined the charity's world-leading scientists and technology gurus from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google to assist design and develop a mobile game that might aid cancer research.

The GameJam event was a type of hackathon that brought scientists and the tech community together, with the goal to come back up with a mobile game application to assist process tens of millions of pieces of gene data in a fun and attractive way. It's hoped the sport may be played by anyone, from anywhere on the planet and within the process help towards accelerating cures for cancer.

The finished application will allow the general public to play an enjoyable game and simultaneously identify common changes in genes due to a gain or lack of chromosomes. This will likely significantly reduce the time it might usually take lab workers to research the data.

Two of our developers, Eric Hibbs and Ravid Rosental, offered to surrender their weekend to work in teams alongside scientists from Cancer Research UK and associates from other leading tech companies. Eric, who features within the GameJam video documenting the development said: "THE DEVELOPMENT was amazing. I've always had a zeal for making games. Having the danger to exercise my passion with a gifted co-worker for a super cause was an out of this world opportunity. I'M HOPING that I AM GETTING the danger to participate in an analogous event again, and i am grateful that PokerStars was willing to send me on this type of great adventure."

Play to overcome cancer

As a technology company we're very proud to look that our highly skilled workforce will have an actual positive social impact through this exciting project. We glance forward to seeing the results of everyone's combined exertions and energy and continuing our involvement with this potentially life changing project.

Sue Hammett is the top of Corporate Giving for The Rational Group.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Corporate Blog]