Personal Note: JDCA Fellowship

I'm very honored to have been selected as a JDCA Fellow.  The JDCA (Juvenile Diabetes Cure Alliance) is an organization which encourages people donating money to type-1 research to direct that money specifically to projects more likely to lead to a cure, and to projects which are closer to a cure.   You can read more about them at their web site:

http://www.thejdca.org/

Their motto is

The voice of the donor for a cure.

And their mission is:

To direct donor contributions to the charitable organizations that most effectively fund research with the goal of delivering a type 1 Practical Cure by 2025.

The JDCA is a dynamic organization with the sole purpose of curing type I diabetes by 2025.

The JDCA asked me to be a JDCA Fellow, and I was happy to agree.  In that capacity, I'll be providing whatever knowledge and insight I can into type-1 research, especially focusing on clinical trials.  In particular, I will help with some of their research reports.   Additionally, being a fellow means that they will update me about the various researchers who they are talking to.  This is no small benefit, as they have excellent contacts with researchers.

You can see the first JDCA report that I helped with, here:

http://www.thejdca.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Platforms-Report-.pdf

I think that this report will give anyone touched by type-1 diabetes useful background knowledge to understand how different lines of research are leading to a cure.  The meat of the report is 4 pages, at it is well worth reading, if you are following the research.

Obviously, we are both interested in research targeting a cure, and in research far enough advanced to be tested in people.  We also both tend to evaluate research based on the data produced (rather than on promises about the future).  So we have a lot in common.

My understanding is that some JDCA fellows will receive stipends for their help, however I'm not comfortable getting money for blogging, so I'm not getting a stipend.  However, the JDCA is willing to pay for research expenses, so I might get reimbursed for on-line medical journals or a bigger screen for my computer.  (I seem to be staring at it more and more these days, and my eyes are getting older and older.)

Please don't make the mistake of thinking that I agree with every detail of everything they do or say.  Nor do I expect them to agree with every detail of everything that I say or do.  And certainly, my blog speaks for me, and not for them.   However, I am always very happy when I can work with type-1 diabetes organizations which are accelerating research into a cure. Finally, remember that I don't "belong" to any organization.  I put a lot of work into the research behind this blog, and so I'm happy to feed that information into the JDCA.  But I'm equally happy to feed it into any other organization that can put it to good use.

Joshua Levy
http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com 
publicjoshualevy at gmail dot com 
All the views expressed here are those of Joshua Levy, and nothing here is official JDRF, JDCA, or Tidepool news, views, policies or opinions. My daughter has type-1 diabetes and participates in clinical trials, which might be discussed here. My blog contains a more complete non-conflict of interest statement. Thanks to everyone who helps with the blog.