Harvard launches innovation contest for type 1 diabetes

Banking on emerging evidence that says innovation happens where academic disciplines intersect, Harvard is inviting ideas from across the university that might help conquer type 1 diabetes.

In an e-mail message to the Harvard community last week, President Drew Faust introduced a contest open to all schools and disciplines. The challenge is to come up with "out-of-the-box questions and proposals" related to type 1 diabetes, in which people's bodies destroy their own insulin-making cells, meaning they must depend on insulin injections to stay alive.

Money from a federal stimulus grant will pay for the contest, also part of a trend toward competitions as ways to solve intractable problems. At least two prizes of $2,500 will be awarded; prizes can go as high as $10,000, Harvard Medical School dean Dr. Jeffrey Flier and Dr. Lee Nadler said in the message introduced by Faust.

"We seek testable questions and ideas about type 1 diabetes that could help define problems or new areas requiring exploration and research," Flier and Nadler write.  "This challenge solicits your ideas but does not require that you have the expertise, laboratory or other resources to answer the question. We are excited by the possibilities of this experiment, and ask you to participate by applying your insights to a problem that may not be in your domain. We also encourage diabetes specialists to propose their unexplored ideas."

Nadler directs the Harvard Catalyst program, which was created in 2008 to unlock knowledge isolated in the university's various academic sub-disciplines.