Breakthroughs to Cures is a real-time, online event that allows participants to share their ideas with others in a game-style format. Particpants can log on and off as they choose, weighing in for a few minutes any time, over the course of a 24-hour period, to contribute or watch as ideas are expanded on and refined by the entire community of participants.
The event on October 7 is organised by Scott Johnson, president and founder of the Foundation. After setting up the organisation in 2002, he created the Accelerated Research Collaboration model in a bid to overcome the roadblocks in the way of getting new treatments to market.
“After six years of research and operations, the MRF is known in the medical research community as a pioneer - a nonprofit organisation that creates collaborations among and between academic scientists, biotech and pharma and government - tapping into the creativity of diverse individuals and organisations to accelerate the process of medical research,” Johnson said.
It is hoped that the online game will allow MRF to draw on the expertise of many busy scientists, industry experts, patients, policy makers and other contributors inside and outside of the medical research and the health care industry. Johnson noted that every day millions of online gamers bring their real world experiences into fictional settings and accomplish great things. “Why not engage the power of an online game to solve a real world problem? Breakthroughs to Cures is an experiment designed to test this hypothesis,” Johnson said.
A summary of the best ideas gleaned from the forum will be publicly available. Register to participate at: http://info.breakthroughstocures.org
Receive our Policy Bulletin each Tuesday & Thursday and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
