I've said in the past that it's good to see a variety of groups trying to crack the science crowdfunding issue - it's tough, and differs from the more popular b

I've said in the past that it's good to see a variety of groups trying to crack the science crowdfunding issue - it's tough, and differs from the more popular branches of crowdfunding in very important ways.[1] The future of medicine, however, rests upon success; there's a lot of medical research that just doesn't get funded because the regulatory situation for commercial applications of research is terrible beyond all belief [2], [3]. The incentives there percolate back up the research chain to ensure that few people work on genuinely groundbreaking things, or on things that are intended to do something other than treat late-stage conditions in marginal ways. Yet this is an era of plummeting costs and soaring capabilities in biotech - so much can be done now with a grad student and a few tens of thousands of dollars that 20 years back would have taken tens of millions and a whole lab, if it could be done at all. In recent years I've been privileged to watch the Longecity community work through the process of crowdfunding small research projects like microglia transplants in mice to evaluate prospects for neurodegenerative treatments [4], to pick one example. That is exactly the sort of thing we'd like to see better frameworks and a broader audience for. In other words, work taking place in niche fields that are important but underfunded and underappreciated, but nonetheless have strong communities with a willingness to step up and help out. But as I've said, it's really, really hard. You can't just kickstart a science project in the same way as for games, tools, etc. It doesn't work that way. So I'm hoping that one of these present ventures finds the key. [1] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/06/you-cant-just-kickstart-a-science-project---it-isnt-that-easy.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/06/you-cant-just-kic... [2] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/the-fda-is-a-destructive-force.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/the-fda-is-a-dest... [3] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/05/envisaging-a-world-without-the-fda.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/05/envisaging-a-worl... [4] http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/05/updates-on-the-longecity-crowdfunded-microglia-study.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/05/updates-on-the-lo...