New research model will speed up treatment of chronic diseases

On Thursday, December 2, 2010 the University of Wisconsin will celebrate the opening of the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery (WID). I wish David Iverson, a former news reporter for Wisconsin’s public television, would be invited to speak on this auspicious occasion.

While many will see this event as a huge investment in innovation technology and higher paying jobs for Wisconsin’s shrinking economy, for many of us who suffer daily from disabling chronic diseases see the event as the beginning of a bright new day of hope. Hope that this new science facility’s foremost mission is to shorten the period before they are once again whole and free of pain once more.

What a unique and perfect choice. Mr. Iverson cut his teeth in Madison as a cub reporter and is now perhaps one of the most articulate and renown public news reporter in the nation. Iverson was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2004 and has been reporting on the search for more effective treatments for that disease and others ever since. What would be more symbolic and appropriate than to have such an informed spokesman for all the people who suffer daily from these burdensome and often oppressive diseases? (Together this includes virtually all of us.)

For those readers who saw Iverson’s news story on PBS’s News Hour last Thursday evening they will recall he reported on a new research model for traditional academic research which is best characterized by patient centered-ness, interdisciplinary collaboration and greater transparency. Most briefly, Iverson’s story reported on the huge gap between when the basic research is published and when big pharma and the biotechnology industry becomes involved and actually invests to bring it to the market.

This gap is often referred to as the valley of death and refers to the huge sum required for the repeated series of never ending human trials. Big pharma is finding fewer and fewer pieces of research worthy and complete enough to invest in. They increasingly refuse to invest in the translation phase of the innovation development process largely owing to a lack of clinical data still tucked safely away in the lead researcher’s lab.

Many believe that the slow pace of medical advancement is directly related to the researchers’ perceived outcomes from their research. Iverson tells the story of how the National Institute of Health spends $30 billion dollars each year to produce 800,000 published papers but its grantees are unable to produce a patient-centered treatment option sufficiently developed enough to persuade big pharma and/or the biotechnology industry to invest further in their work.

If the basic research is to be credible in terms of this new research model the researcher begins by immediately changing their beginning question of “why do certain conditions exist, to a new focus of, how can I repair this patient’s specific condition? Rather than starting with an intriguing scientific question, the researcher begins by asking what can we do treat a patient with this kind of disease? Using this approach in a multiple sclerosis example, the question is not why does the myelin go missing which sheathes the nerves, but more practically, how can we repair it?

This patient-centered research question must begin immediately to be integrated into the entire research/medical enterprise involving academics, researchers and medical scientists, including the clinical staff, family physician, patients and their caretakers.

After viewing this News Hour presentation, I immediately went to my computer and reviewed the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery’s key objectives for this public-private partnership. As I compared the new research model discussed above with WID’s key objectives, I was delighted to see that one key objective is to “Create the potential for a fundamental transformation of human biology and medicine.”

Another objective included, “Provide cutting edge scientific advances for clinical application and translation in the UW-Madison Medical School’s new Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research.” This WID objective appears to me to be consistent with the need to move more quickly and directly with the clinical science necessary to transform the research question into patient treatment.

Note the new locus where this clinical science is to now take place -- mostly all right here in the UW-Madison region. Presently there exist a costly disconnect between the origin of the research and where and who does the grunt clinical work necessary to eventually help bring it into the clinic. Any thing less for a first class world-wide and preeminent multidisciplinary science center now seems almost unbelievable and short-sighted.

I was struck by the convergence already apparent between this new research model discussed above with UW WID’s key objectives. I believe that David Iverson would be able however to give these objectives a fresh and clearer meaning to both the taxpaying health consumer and the business community as well. When such a transformation process is completed biotech innovations will become far less costly and happen much more often, and again, Wisconsin will lead the way.

If this article serves to bring these two points of view closer together (a new and more expeditious research model and the journey that WID is about to begin) then it will have met its objective as well.

Benedict is a patient advocate who tweets at: twitter.com/stemcellbill