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The Value of Citizen Science
Citizen science is more than crowdsourced curiosity — it’s a powerful way to expand who participates in science, how questions are asked, and which problems get solved.
Your perspective matters to move diagnostics forward.
Why It Can Help
Expands Data Reach
Citizen contributors — including students and non-experts — can help gather and annotate real-world insights, identify patterns, and co-create datasets that better represent our communities.
Accelerates Student Learning
Involving students in diagnostic challenges deepens their understanding of microbiology, bioinformatics, and public health while giving them hands-on experience with real-world tools.
Supports Transparency & Trust
When community members take part in building diagnostics, they develop trust in the process and can help explain it within their own networks — particularly important in historically underserved populations.
Bridges the Innovation Gap
Rare diseases, emerging pathogens, and low-resource settings often don’t get commercial attention. Citizen science helps elevate these areas and bring new ideas into diagnostic pipelines.
Democratizes Diagnostics
Through volunteer review panels, test co-design, and educational pilots, citizen scientists — including students — play a direct role in shaping how diagnostics are designed, used, and explained.
Citizen Science for
Infectious Disease Diagnostics
Join us in building the future of clinical testing.
At PetrifiedBugs, we believe better diagnostics start with better collaboration — not just among experts, but with the broader community of scientists, clinicians, educators, patients, and curious minds.
Through our citizen science initiative, we invite you to get involved in developing, testing, and shaping tools that support more accurate, accessible, and meaningful infectious disease diagnostics.
What We’re Working On
We organize projects around real-world diagnostic challenges, and we welcome input from professionals and the public alike.
Current focus areas include:
Data Tools for Antibiotic Resistance
Building and improving tools like the Antibiotic Breakpoint Explorer (ABE) to help users understand clinically used antibiotics. View the project ›
Advancing Microbiome Diagnostics
Early-stage project to aid in microbiome reporting and educational tools. Let us know what you think it important! Learn more ›