Western professor Dr. Chil-Yong Kang of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry joined the Reddit community on Friday, answering questions about the Phase I clinical trial of the Sumagen HIV/AIDS vaccine, as part of IamA/Ask Me Anything (AMA). Kang, left, and Mathew Hoy, a Western senior web designer, fielded hundreds of questions and comments in the hour-long online conversation.
With more than 73 million unique visitors last month, Reddit is an online community where registered users vote submitted content up or down in popularity. One of the most visible features on the ‘front page of the Internet’ is IamA/AMA, where notable and/or interesting individuals answer direct questions from the community.
Although wildly popular online, IamA/AMA occasionally hits mainstream consciousness as when U.S. President Barack Obama sat for one while running for his second term or when Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield participated from the International Space Station. Overall, the variety of participants is staggering. Kang was preceded by an anesthesia awareness survivor and followed by a U.S. Army soldier injured in a POW recovery mission in Afghanistan.
