PatientsLikeMe Study Shows Social Media's Value as Research Tool

April 25, 2011 | A new clinical trial using social networking takes issue with previously published data, suggesting that lithium does not slow the progression of symptoms of Lou Gehrig's disease. Perhaps more importantly however, the study, authored by researchers at Patients Like Me and published in Nature Biotechnology, shows the potential value of the approach -- recruiting and analyzing data from volunteers in a virtual clinical trial at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional trials. Wall Street Journal