[Ip-health] Harvard Graduate Holds X-PRIZE for ALS Research

[James Packard Love]

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/05/harvard_graduat.html

Harvard Graduate Holds X-PRIZE for ALS Research

By Steven Edwards EmailMay 28, 2007

Prize4life -- an X-PRIZE-style competition intended to stimulate
innovation and produce tangible results in ALS research -- recently
awarded its first prizes: Five researchers each received $15,000 to
develop a biomarker for tracking the progression of ALS, a fatal
disease.

If they, or anyone else, succeed in developing a verifiable biomarker
by November 6, 2008, they will win $1 million. Such a biomarker would
enable scientists to test for ALS before the visible onset of
symptoms, similar to markers in the blood of AIDS patients. If the
biomarker could be detected early enough, researchers may be able to
treat patients with neuroprotective drugs to delay or prevent the
disease's progression.

The founder of Prize4Life is Harvard Business School graduate Avichai
Kremer, who was diagnosed with ALS in the fall of 2004. A 2006
article in the Wall Street Journal provides this portrayal of him --
which seems to fit most people his (our?) age:

     Avichai Kremer arrived at Harvard Business School in the fall of
2004, a cocky 29-year-old with a computer-science degree, a few years
experience as a platoon commander in the Israeli artillery corps and
another few as a manager for an Israeli defense-electronics company.

     "I felt like a diamond in the rough that only needed the M.B.A.
polish to fulfill its destiny: conquer the business world," he wrote
in the school's student newspaper in February 2005. "I thought all I
would have to do is choose between the Fortune 500 companies that
would offer me the opportunity to become their next CEO."

An article from today's The Boston Globe offers an updated description:

     Avi Kremer's thoughts and words are locked in a constant hare
and tortoise race, words unable to keep pace with thoughts.

     It is the singular burden of ALS: The mind remains fiercely
active, even as the connections from brain to mouth fray. Kremer,
diagnosed with the disease just months after enrolling in Harvard
Business School , begins a sentence and stops. Then starts again. And
stops. Sometimes, when a word proves especially recalcitrant, he
shakes his head and smiles.

     "I have developed a lot of patience," he said.

     Kremer, whose wheelchair sports a Borat the comedian
bumpersticker, has not let the disease steal his humor, his
determination, his deep desire to be innovative.

Similar X-PRIZE-style competitions across multiple conditions and
diseases could bring cures for many -- capitalism at its finest.


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James Packard Love
Knowledge Ecology International
mailto:james.love@keionline.org
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / U.S. mobile+1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile
+41.76.413.6584

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." Bill Walton"