Funding

$10,000 challenge launches to fight infectious diseases affecting 30 million people

Infectious diseases that affect 30 million people worldwide are the focus of a new Challenge posted on the nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion .

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) is looking for potential targets for drugs against African Sleeping Sickness, Visceral Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, and Chagas Disease. These diseases are caused by parasites, most of which are transmitted by insects. Together these diseases affect the lives of 30 million people in more than 88 countries. Many are endemic in some of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and South-East Asia.

“At DNDi we are delighted to partner with InnoCentive and Nature Publishing Group,” says Rob Don, Senior Project Manager at DNDi. “By submitting this Challenge to the scientific community worldwide, we not only hope to swiftly obtain potential solutions to the problem, but also to draw its attention to the need to do more to find and develop treatments for these deadly diseases.”

The Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted by 16 April 2010, including a list of potential anti-kinetoplastid drug targets, together with a list of small molecule compounds that can be used to inactivate these targets in a chemical validation experiment. DNDi has posted the Challenge on the nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion with the financial support of Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and InnoCentive. NPG will provide the $10,000 award for a successful solution, and InnoCentive are providing their Challenge development and screening services pro-bono.

“The power of crowd sourced innovation is truly inspiring when directed at the non-profit sector,” offered Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of InnoCentive. “This model enables the the world’s brightest minds to be able to help solve some of the greatest challenges and impact the lives of millions.”

“The nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion makes it possible to put a question in front of a large body of scientists with a wide range of expertise,” says Veronique Kiermer, Publisher, Methods, Protocols and Products at Nature Publishing Group. “We think this is particularly important in the area of so-called neglected diseases, where research resources are sometimes limited. We are happy to challenge the nature.com audience with such an important question from DNDi.”

Launched in June 2009, the nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion is jointly hosted on InnoCentive.com and nature.com, and provides a hub for scientific collaboration and open innovation. Companies and not-for-profit organizations (known as ‘Seekers’) can post ‘Challenges’ in life sciences, physical sciences and clinical medicine on the nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion. These ‘Challenges’ are briefs allowing Seekers to tap into external expertise to solve research problems or drive development of new products and technologies. Successful Solvers receive financial rewards. Seekers can call on the expertise from nature.com’s five million monthly visitors and InnoCentive’s community of more than 200,000 Solvers. To date, 25 Challenges have been posted in the nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion.

Six of these Challenges have already been solved, with more than $75,000 awarded for satisfactory solutions.

More information:

Nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion: www.nature.com/openinnovation

Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi): www.dndi.org
InnoCentive: www.innocentive.com

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