Demystify Your Disease’s R&D Readiness

Tips for Success

  • Scientists performing research to understand a disease process may be associated with the government, a university (academic institutions), a non-profit organization,or pharmaceutical industry.
  • If you don’t have anyone with a scientific background in your group as staff or volunteers, consider hiring a graduate student, medical student, postdoc, or fellow who can do the literature search for you and report what they found in an understandable format. 
  • Consult with your Scientific/Medical Advisory Board about which research or research tools may still be needed. Remember, not everything has to be known before the search for new treatments or a cure begins. 
  • Developing more than 1 disease model may be necessary and optimal. Again, relying on your scientific and medical advisory board to evaluate this need rather than a researcher asking to be funded to do the research is important.
  • Not all emerging therapeutic approaches or technologies will be applicable to your disease and popular press may exaggerate the readiness of a new development. Therefore you may want to review any new developments with your Scientific/Medical Advisory Board or talk to the leading medical researchers working on your disease(s).

Resources

Research Tools
Genetic Therapies
Finding Disease and Technology Info
Keeping Up with Advances