The Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF), a medical research organization developing treatments for multiple sclerosis, is incredibly innovative and has successfully challenged the way medical research is being done. Recently, the MRF received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to “organize two virtual forums to engage innovators both inside and outside the medical research field to explore ideas and strategies like the MRF model that could lead to more effective and efficient ways to fund and conduct research.”
The MRF is working with another Bay Area non-profit, the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, CA (IFTF), to develop this virtual forum (or game). The game will use “crowd sourcing” technology to discuss solutions to problems that currently limit the development of patient treatments. The goal is to generate solutions to accelerate drug discovery and development in all areas of medical research, for all diseases, and all patients.
There three reasons why I think this will work:
First, playing a game unleashes creativity and other qualities not typically utilized in other problem setting situations. Secondly, an open-source environment promotes input from a broad group of people and perspectives.
And finally, the computing age was “hatched” in a similar way. In the May 2010 edition of Wired magazine author Steven Levy writes “I thought of hackers as little more than an interesting sub-culture. But as I researched them, I found that their playfulness, as well as their blithe disregard for what others said was impossible, led to the breakthroughs that would define the computing age.” Furthermore, he states, “most of them did it simply for the job of pulling off an awesome trick.”
Doesn’t this sound a lot like playing a game? Twenty-five years ago Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak were not working for companies that told them what they had to achieve. Nor were their goals financial or market-driven. Clearly, Hackers shared many gamer qualities like “blissful productivity, “desire for epic meaning,” and the “urgent optimism” that Dr. Jane McGonigal of the ITFT observes in the gaming culture today.
I believe that creating a gaming environment is a potential way to facilitate breakthroughs on par with those of the computer hackers 25 years ago.
What do you think about gaming? Do you play yourself? Or if you have children, do you allow them to play?
I wrote a longer piece posted on MRF’s blog. You can read the entire blog entry here. Check back for details later this summer on how to participate.
Tags: autoimmune disease, medical innovation, medical research, multiple sclerosis
