Harvard Graduate Holds X-Prize-like Competition for ALS Research

Prize4Life -- an X-PRIZE-style competition intended to stimulate innovation and produce tangible results in ALS research -- recently awarded its first prizes: Five researchers each received $15,000 to develop a biomarker for tracking the progression of ALS, a fatal disease.

If they, or anyone else, succeed in developing a verifiable biomarker by November 6, 2008, they will win $1 million. Such a biomarker would enable scientists to test for ALS before the visible onset of symptoms, similar to markers in the blood of AIDS patients. If the biomarker could be detected early enough, researchers may be able to treat patients with neuroprotective drugs to delay or prevent the disease's progression.

The founder of Prize4Life is Harvard Business School graduate Avichai Kremer, who was diagnosed with ALS in the fall of 2004. A 2006 article in the Wall Street Journal provides this portrayal of him -- which seems to fit most people his (our?) age:

Avichai Kremer arrived at Harvard Business School in the fall of
2004, a cocky 29-year-old with a computer-science degree, a few years experience as a platoon commander in the Israeli artillery corps and another few as a manager for an Israeli defense-electronics company.

"I felt like a diamond in the rough that only needed the M.B.A.
polish to fulfill its destiny: conquer the business world," he wrote in the school's student newspaper in February 2005. "I thought all I would have to do is choose between the Fortune 500 companies that would offer me the opportunity to become their next CEO."

An article from today's The Boston Globe offers an updated description:

Avi Kremer's thoughts and words are locked in a constant hare and tortoise race, words unable to keep pace with thoughts.

It is the singular burden of ALS: The mind remains fiercely active, even as the connections from brain to mouth fray. Kremer, diagnosed with the disease just months after enrolling in Harvard Business School , begins a sentence and stops. Then starts again. And stops. Sometimes, when a word proves especially recalcitrant, he shakes his head and smiles.

"I have developed a lot of patience," he said.

Kremer, whose wheelchair sports a Borat the comedian bumpersticker, has
____not let the disease steal his humor, his determination, his deep desire to be innovative.

Similar X-PRIZE-style competitions across multiple conditions and diseases could bring cures for many -- capitalism at its finest.

The Business of Survival [The Boston Globe]