Data Driven Discovery

I've learned alot this year from the knowledgeable group of T1 adults, parents of kids with diabetes and newly diagnosed children who all make up the community at JUVENATION. They're generously sharing their first hand discoveries, battle stories and online support to the greater diabetes community and moving the needle towards better day to day diabetes care. This is community crowdsourcing. I wrote a guest post on Amy Tenderich's Diabetesmine blog in November about the power of crowdsourcing and urged those who are touched with diabetes to do their social networking with purpose.

Last week at the FasterCures Conference in New York, I was excited to see this concept taken one step further. Researchers and foundations are tapping into patient data to accelerate scientific findings that can point to better treatments and cures. Today, the conference video has been made available to the public and you can learn what's been going on with the Type 1 Diabetes Exchange. It's hard to imagine that sharing your blood glucose readings and insulin pump bolus data to scientists can get us to cures faster. But that day is coming. Fast.

*** Fast forward to the 23 minute mark of the video to jump to Maria Schiller's update about the groundbreaking T1 Diabetes Exchange program.