Narrow and Focused Strategy: How We Landed On the Moon
Over the past couple of days we have discussed the JDCA’s latest report, “Is Type 1 Cure Research Funding Focused Enough?” and today we wanted to really discuss what we advocate – which is a narrow and focused approach to a type 1 diabetes cure.
As we have established, taking a broad approach to funding research projects simply is not working. So we need to urge the adoption of a new strategy.
What kind of things do we want to see? Here are a few:
- Ensure that the most promising projects are aggressively pursued
- Adequately fund projects that have potential to deliver a Practical Cure
- Accelerate the timeline to delivering tangible cure results
- Avoid potential duplication of research efforts
We need to launch an overwhelming, urgent, and persistent support for a select group of research projects which have the potential to meet clearly defined goals.
Most of all, we need to combine clear end goals with a targeted strategy that maximizes the chances for cure development.
Our report includes notable examples where very focused strategies have achieved big goals, and can serve as an inspiration in our quest to find a type 1 diabetes cure.
One such example:
In 1961 President Kennedy set the goal of landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Given this clearly defined goal and the relatively short time table, NASA succeeded at landing men on the moon in 1969, and repeated its success with five subsequent manned moon landings.
Everyone recognizes how high of a mountain we need to climb to find a cure for diabetes – but we must remember that the dream of landing a man on the moon once seemed impossible too. A clear goal with a focused strategy is the first step towards progress.
- Stoyan
A thought on the moon landing… What if we didn’t know HOW to actually get to the moon? What if that specific goal of going to the moon (and not some other spot in space) was a pie in the sky, because at that time we didn’t know whether we’d have to fly ourselves, take a hot air balloon, get an airplane to shoot straight up, use some Rocket A, B, C or yet-undesigned spacecraft? But it wasn’t that way, because it was more a matter of perfecting the already-existing rockets and operational aspects in order to make the visit.
On the D front, we don’t know HOW to get to that cure that’s way up there in space. Mostly because we don’t know at this time what causes diabetes, and so it’s not like we’re able to plot a point on a space map where we want and need to go and then just perfect the tools we have to get there. Our destination isn’t known – it could be way into another galaxy, or right next to the moon; and we may not have the actual ability to recognize it or visit that place at this time. If we just pick a place based on one aspect of “focused” research, we could very well be missing the entire picture of where and how we get there. And in the end, one of the rockets won’t function properly because we had tunnel vision in getting to a cure and weren’t willing to look at all the pieces before plunging ahead.
Hi Mike!
Thanks for taking the time to read our report. Your critical thought and analysis are exactly the type of perceptiveness that we believe will encourage progress and maximize research in the diabetes non-profit world.
On the D front, you’re right, we don’t know exactly how a type 1 cure will be developed. But funding alot of projects with smaller amounts hasn’t made tremendous progress in cure research. By concentrating on fewer projects, we will have to focus on projects that have the best chances of delivering a type 1 cure (the projects that have a defined outcome and set plan to achieve that goal). This will also help to avoid duplicating research and unite research to work towards a defined goal.
The JDCA does not believe that exploratory and undefined research will help accelerate the development of a cure. But, you are right, there is a place for that type of research and inventions/breakthroughs have sometimes come from unexpected places. However, most of the government funding for diabetes research fulfills this purpose and donor money raised for a cure can be more effective if directed towards focused endeavors.
Cara