Case Studies

Innovation That Works: Case Studies

Many organizations are making significant strides toward creating frameworks for innovation.

Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis (ACP): Strategically attacking the problem

ACP created the MS "Cure Map" to systematically list and investigate all possible causes of this complex disease, review the MS literature, determine promising areas of research and how to address them, and ultimately execute experiments to include/exclude specific causes – and in the process lay the groundwork for determining the causes of many other diseases.

Cure Autism Now (CAN): Creating research resources to speed discovery

CAN has created the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange, an open gene bank with a large collection of immortalized cell lines and DNA samples and accompanying clinical data, made available to the entire scientific community to foster collaboration among researchers, increase the number of families in the collection, and provide an international mechanism for rapid replication.

Institute for OneWorld Health: Building partnerships for progress on neglected diseases

OneWorld Health is bringing new medicines to market for infectious diseases outside the U.S. by developing existing, late-stage, often off-patent formulations with a group of partners that includes both industry and academia.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF): Managing the research portfolio

Each year, JDRF undertakes a proactive, results-driven approach to ensure funding goes to outstanding research offering the most promise of helping patients, by updating milestones for the entire field of type 1 diabetes research and determining where and how JDRF can most effectively make an impact with its resources.

Louis Warschaw Prostate Cancer Center: Using technology to increase efficiency and lower cost

The Clinical Outcomes Project is a multidisciplinary effort to use blood serum and protein analysis to better understand therapy outcomes. Cutting-edge equipment yields an enormous amount of data about the proteins of clinical trial participants, allowing researchers to detect patterns and predict the outcomes of treatments.

Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium (MMRC): Integrating researchers through IT

In order to integrate the leading academic centers in the field of myeloma, MMRC built customized IT systems for patient registration, tissue tracking, clinical and experimental data collection, data queries, and more. Member institutions are also joined through detailed and extensive membership agreements, central scientific cores and leadership teams, and an integrated, central tissue bank.

Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF): Accelerating research through collaboration

To achieve its mission to improve the lives of those suffering from multiple sclerosis, MRF has assembled an interdisciplinary team of leading research scientists, laboratories and institutions and provided them with an infrastructure enabling the team to identify, understand, and validate promising solutions quickly.

Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF): Setting new standards for research funding

PCF has reformed the grant system by attracting talent to prostate cancer research through increasing available funding and providing it rapidly with minimal bureaucracy. The foundation requires anyone receiving funding to share their results at an annual meeting.