Alzheimer Scientists Don’t Forget

The lead story in The New York Times this morning, “Rare Sharing of Data Led to Results on Alzheimer’s,” describes the unique collaborative efforts required to discover how to reach an early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, basically a willingness to share all data and tests over the Internet, giving up any intellectual property or patent rights among a large group of scientists.

The scientists worked with drug companies and government agencies to create an unprecedented full-court press and even allowed the public, whom they were previously afraid would misinterpret the data, to follow the experiments. The National Institute of Health helped to coordinate all the groups and Foundation for the National Institutes of Health helped to provide funding. The effort was labelled ADNI, the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.

The success of this effort so far — they’ve already discovered a 100-percent way to detect the disease using PET scans and spinal fluid — shows how far we can go when we work together instead of at cross-purposes. We can literally reach the moon.

The research structure created for Alzheimer’s is already being considered as a model for a similar campaign on Parkinson’s disease. I think it should be considered in other areas of endeavor as well. How about the U.S. Senate for a start? If Republicans could just give up their blanket opposition to anything proposed by the President, we could negotiate and do wonders to improve and transform our society in a way we could all agree on.