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Which sections of the site can I contribute to?

Plainly speaking, there is NO section that you cannot contribute to. You can send us whatever you think is interesting. If you have any new ideas for the site (e.g. Chetan had the idea for the medical mnemonics section) please do suggest them to us. We are always open for suggestions, including shutting down the site completely (just kidding..)

However, here is a list of sections that you can make one-off contributions to with minimal effort:

1) Humor : Jokes/Cartoons
2) Links : website addresses of sites that you know of.
3) Medical mnemonics : We are sure all of you know/have made up some...
4) Notes/software : You do not have to send the actual notes/software to us. Just mail us the web address.
5) Book and movie reviews: will take up a bit more of your time, but ultimately, more satisfying.. :)

For contributing to any of the other sections, kindly contact the relevant section editors e.g. for IIT contact nikhil@kemates.com . If for some reason you cannot get in contact with a particular person, please email oncogen@kemates.com or mukesh@kemates.com 

How can I write articles for the site?

Writing articles is very simple. You just have to think of a topic, type it out in plain text / Word , and mail it to us. WE will take care of arranging the article properly, adding the appropriate images and in general making it presentable.
It is very easy to write an article. None of us (except Roopa and Dhruv) have written published in print before.
It would be helpful for us if you could include a list of the links that you used to write the article so that we get an overview of the subject ourselves. If you have difficulty in searching for the proper resources over the net, please email us and we will mail you with a list of websites that we think might be useful.

The article of course will be credited to the author, whose name shall also appear along with the banner. (please see the stem cell article/hiking banner for an example)

The choice of the topic is entirely up to you. You can write on any subject you think is interesting (not necessarily related to medicine) The following are a list of the topics that some of us have thought over and feel would be interesting. If you are interested in writing any article from this list, please email contribute@kemates.com for the details. 

1) The next antibiotic (bacteriophage based antibiotics)
With the incidence of bacterial resistance increasing in recent years, scientists are turning towards modified bacteriophages to act as "biological antibiotics" , with little chance of the bacteria thus targeted developing resistance.

2) Artificial implants : Cochlea and Retina
Scientists have developed prototype artificial versions of both these organs. The artificial retina is an array of photoreceptors while the artificial cochlea consists of a series of electrodes inserted at different depths in the brain stem.

3) Nanotechnology ( very small robots, almost the size of a cell ) in medicine:
Nanotechnology is the genetics of engineering. A rapidly growing field, it concerns itself with machines which are excessively small (measurable in Angstroms). Applications of this relatively new field to medicine include clearing of clotted arteries and microsurgery e.g. of the ear.

4) Neuronal regeneration:
YUP!!! Neurons DO divide!! just like other cells in the body. It is just that they don't divide as often as other cells do... This fact has been known as long ago as 1997, but it still seems too hard to believe.

5) The Aids drug row (S.Africa and Brazil)
People in India are lucky since they get medicines for diseases like AIDS for a fraction of the price that they would cost in developed countries like the US.
Other developing countries (notably S.Africa and Brazil) have  been violating patent laws and trying to make these drugs accessible to the poor. Roche recently dropped anti-HIV drug prices by 40% in Brazil after the govt. threatened to neglect the relevant patent laws.
With the GATT agreement to be implemented and with Indian pharmaceutical companies to come under the purview of international patent laws, will drug costs in India rise to fantastically high costs too?

6) Vaccines :
An article on any of the newer vaccines would be welcome. e.g. development of a newer TB vaccine (funded by WHO) which is much more reliable than the current BCG vaccine.

7) Zyvox : 
The first completely new antibiotic in 35 years, completely unrelated to anything preceding it. Especially useful in nosocomial infections because of almost zero rate of resistance. An article about mech. of action, side effects, and careful use of the antibiotic (to prevent the development of bacterial resistance)  would be informative and timely.

8) Bioinformatics in medicine
Self explanatory title. Specific applications (already implemented in hospitals) would be appealing.

LARGE ARTICLES:

1)CLONING:
Hows and whens and whos and whys and why nots

2) GENE THERAPY:
Subtopics could be:
1) Celera v/s the HGT (human genome project) : with easily understandable technical details
2) Specific applications in medicine (already experimentally demonstrated)
3) gene therapy including method of transfer of genes (very interesting)
4) ethical/practical concerns
 ( may be broken down and posted over several weeks, or might be made into a single large multi-authored article.)

As we mentioned, we will help you to write the article in whatever way we can, including helping you to search for the relevant resources on the net. We have a list of general purpose sites e.g. www.fda.gov which are usually very helpful for this purpose.

We hope that you help us develop the site and make it the best among ALL the college sites currently on the web. As we are never tired of saying: We CANNOT do all of this alone.... :)