Challenge of finding a cure
Crowdsourcing, the act of contracting out problems to large groups rather than tapping individual experts, has solved puzzles in fields such as marketing, engineering, and computer software. But can the wisdom of crowds help cure disease? A large, multidisciplinary panel has recently selected 12 pioneering ideas for attacking type 1 diabetes, ideas selected through a crowdsourcing experiment called the “Challenge,” in which all members of the Harvard community, as well as members of the general public, were invited to answer the question: What do we not know to cure type 1 diabetes? “We wanted to ask the entire Harvard community — faculty, students, and administrators and staff of all levels and specialties — to share their ‘out of the box’ questions and proposals for this challenge, regardless of whether they had the expertise or resources to answer the question,” said Harvard Catalyst Director and Harvard Medical School (HMS) Dean for Clinical and...