HOW CAN INNOVATION AFFECT WAYS OF LIFE TRIAL

Its goal is to identify and remove obstacles to innovation in traditional research. The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, established by Napster co-founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker, is a network of top institutions including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Stanford, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and more. One of the original disrupters of the new economy is bringing his approach to medical research. Sean Parker: A disruptive approach to cancer research вЂњIf we are part of the pathway for drug creation, then maybe we can also become part of the pathway to get these drugs into Africa,вЂќ Ene-Obong says.

If companies are going to profit by developing marketable drugs based on the DNA of African people, Africa should benefit: so, when partnering with companies, 54gene prioritizes those that commit to including African countries in marketing plans for any resulting drugs. 54gene is conscious of the ugly history of colonial exploitation in Africa. Named for AfricaвЂ™s 54 countries, the Nigeria-based startup is sourcing genetic material from volunteers across the continent, to make drug research and development more equitable. Abasi Ene-Obong,вЂЇ34, founded 54gene to change that. вЂњThey will eat and drink and play like those of us who are not.вЂќ -Don SteinbergДЄbasi Ene-Obong: A more diverse global bio bankДЄ major limitation threatens to hamper the era of personalized medicine: people of Caucasian descent are a minority in the global population yet make up nearly 80% of the subjects in human-genome research, creating blind spots in drug research. вЂњIf it works in people as well as it does in animals, itвЂ™s possible that people will not be diabetic,вЂќ Melton says. The company has created a small, implantable device that holds millions of replacement beta cells, letting glucose and insulin through but keeping immune cells out. In 2014 he co-founded Semma Therapeutics-the name is derived from Sam and Emma-to develop the technology, and this summer it was acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for $950 million. He started the work over 10 years ago, when stem-cell research was raising hopes and controversy. Melton has a different approach: using stem cells to create replacement beta cells that produce insulin. Treatment can involve a lifetime of careful eating, insulin injections and multiple daily blood-glucose tests. Type 1 diabetes affects 1.25 million Americans, but two in particular got Harvard biologist Doug MeltonвЂ™s attention: his daughter Emma and son Sam. Jeffrey KlugerДoug Melton: A stem-cell cure for diabetes Evidation is partnering with Brigham and WomenвЂ™s Hospital on the project.

For founder Christine Lemke, one of EvidationвЂ™s ongoing projects, to see if new technologies can effectively measure chronic pain, is personal: Lemke has a rare genetic disease that causes frequent back pain. Evidation partners with drug manufacturers like Sanofi and Eli Lilly to parse that data that work has led to dozens of peer-reviewed studies already, on subjects ranging from sleep and diet to cognitive-health patterns.

California-based Big Data firm Evidation has developed just such a tool, with information from 3 million volunteers providing trillions of data points. If there were a way to aggregate all that data from even a few million of us and make it all anonymous but searchable, medical researchers would have a powerful tool for drug development, lifestyle studies and more. There are 7.5 billion humans, and tens of millions of us track our health with wearables like smart watches, as well as with more traditional devices like blood-pressure monitors. And in Ghana and Rwanda, drones operated by Silicon Valley startup Zipline are already delivering medical supplies to rural villages. Wing, a division of GoogleвЂ™s parent company Alphabet, received similar, but more limited, FAA approval to make deliveries for both Walgreens and FedEx. UPS is not alone in pioneering air deliveries. вЂњWe expect UPS Flight Forward to one day be a very significant part of our company,вЂќ says UPS CEO David Abney of the service, which will deliver urine, blood and tissue samples, and medical essentials like drugs and transfusable blood. A fleet-footed runner could cover the distance almost as fast as the drones, but as a proof-of-concept program, it succeeded, and in October the FAA granted the company approval to expand to 20 hospitals around the U.S.

HOW CAN INNOVATION AFFECT WAYS OF LIFE TRIAL

Since March, UPS has been conducting a trial program called Flight Forward, using autonomous drone deliveries of critical medical samples including blood or tissue between two branches of a hospital in Raleigh, N.C., located 150 yards apart. David Abney: Drone-delivered medical supplies

How can innovation affect ways of life