Becoming a Leader in Medical Breakthroughs: Cultivating Optimism and Scientific Innovation Literacy

In an interview with Devin Thorpe, Bill Gates points out that his superpower is his ability to use optimism about scientific innovation to assemble large teams (1).

Gates did this at Microsoft and now is using that superpower to solve the biggest challenges in medical innovation.

He points out that optimism is even more necessary in medical innovation because instead of a few years, many medical innovations take decades.

He cites the example of HIV vaccine. When that becomes available, it will have been 25 years in the making.

When teams are forming a strategy or developing a consortium project, there is often a tension between being too ambitious vs. having a feasible project.

In my experience, those who can live with the uncertainty of pursuing an ambitious goal end up having the greatest sense of satisfaction in having contributed to something that made a real difference.

Optimism about scientific innovation is the key to leading medical breakthroughs.

Its opposite, pessimism about scientific innovation, is one of the reasons we have so much medical research that does not reach its full potential.

How many papers are published about discovering or finding new biomarkers? How many biomarkers are actually in clinical practice?

If you take the phrase medical innovation to mean the act of translating research into clinical practice, there are many reasons to be pessimistic.

Part of the cause of this dampened ambition to achieve medical breakthroughs may be due to different definitions of the word innovation.

In academia, innovation is used more in the context of something novel, while a more industrial perspective is that innovation is the implementation of novel research findings or technology (2).

The choice of overlapping yet very different definitions of innovation is that translating medical research into clinical practice is a complex and difficult process.

The tendency is to focus on what is not necessarily easier, but what you can be more certain you will achieve. You can be relatively certain that with good science you will uncover novel findings and advance our understanding of health and disease.

You cannot be certain that even with the best science a novel finding will end up being a new therapy. You cannot be certain that you will achieve broader concepts such as precision medicine.

The question is how to remain optimistic about medical scientific innovation in the face of all the complexity and the long time scale?

By the end of this article, you will have strategies for boosting your optimism.

Most importantly, you will have ideas of how to improve your ability to be a leader or a leading organization striving for medical breakthroughs.

Strategies for achieving medical breakthroughs

Learn about scientific innovation.

When you work across multiple life sciences domains as I do, you realize that different domains are at different stages of development in exactly the same concept.

Take for example precision medicine.

In the respiratory field, there is interest in developing precision medicine by making use of molecular profiling. It remains a topic of research and not yet part of clinical practice. In oncology, precision medicine is beginning to be part of clinical practice. Learning about those advances can help you envision the future for respiratory disease.

Learning about new advances in technology is important.

The currency of research is not publications. It is the techniques and technology that you employ. Learning about federated analysis approaches inspired the structure of the SHARP CRC (3), which has effectively connected severe asthma registries across Europe.

It would be easy to be pessimistic in the current setting of data privacy protectionism that has been stimulated by the GDPR.

Gain literacy in medical research and medical innovation trends.

Literacy is not the same as competence. Literacy is knowing enough about a topic to be able to talk to others about the topic, including those who are experts in a given field. Medical breakthroughs require a whole group of disciplines and stakeholders working and thinking together.

So, you need to understand and be able to talk to different disciplines.

Here are six scientific innovation trends in the life sciences to pay attention to:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is a challenging term. It encompasses a variety of meanings for different people. However, it is an undeniable trend and technology. On a practical note, funding agencies now mandate a detailed description of AI in funding proposals. This entails not only involving experts but also having enough understanding to assess the adequacy of the proposal’s details.

Here is a document from the OECD that was shared by Harald Schmidt, who often shares insights and resources like this on LinkedIn: https://www.oecd.org/health/AI-in-health-huge-potential-huge-risks.pdf

2. Interception

Interception is the concept of intervening in the disease process prior to making a diagnosis and beginning treatment. This is a rapidly growing trend. For a more in-depth discussion, read the previous edition of the Impact Newsletter.

3. Precision medicine.

Precision or personalized medicine has been discussed for decades. Yet it remains an inspiring and highly relevant topic. Implementing precision medicine is very challenging, which is why there is a need to have as many people thinking and driving projects to realize the promise of precision medicine.

The individualized medicine center at Mayo Clinic is a glimpse of the future. This overview provides a perspective on the different types of ’omic’s: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayos-new-omics-strategy-leaps-into-the-future/?sf188394696=1

4. Cell therapy

Cell therapies such as engineered T-cells is a rapidly growing field now moving out of hematology and into oncology and possibly many other disease areas. It has been called the third pillar of medicine with the first two being small molecules and biologics. In this sense, cell therapy is likely to become relevant to all disease areas. The key concept to grasp is that cell therapy is a shift towards being able to ‘engineer’ as opposed to discovering new therapies.

The IHI project T2EVOLVE, in which we are a partner, has a patient and caregiver education hub that is a collection of CAR-T educational resources.

There is a hub for patients and an hub for health care providers.

5. Structuring data and knowledge

Data is the glue for collaboration. As we have become increasingly able to collect, store and retrieve data, the potential of data to speed up research and innovation has gone exponential.

However, that is all lost if effort is not invested in structuring the data you are collecting and the knowledge you are generating. Structuring data is one of the exponential factors that are essential to any life science strategy or consortium project.

Structuring data and standards is central to the process we use to help disease foundations develop strategic plans. Here is a video and a list of resources from CDISC, an organization we work with a lot. https://www.cdisc.org/new-to-cdisc/patient-foundation There are other similar resources tailored to different stakeholders under their “New to CDISC” menu.

6. Digital health.

The gains that digital health could bring have also been part of a long-standing promise of better care and management of disease. The most intriguing aspect of digital health is the ability to engage patients as partners in understanding and managing their health.

Here is a great resource from the European Respiratory Society on digital health. It is focused on respiratory health but many of the principles extend to other disease areas. https://reader.ersjournals.com/digital-respiratory-healthcare/8

How increased literacy will help you achieve medical breakthroughs

By gaining an understanding of these topics, you will be able to develop your research in ways that contribute to and leverage these trends.

When you look over this list, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the potential of scientific innovation.

At the same time, the long-standing promise of concepts like precision medicine and digital health highlights the importance of working together to solve these major challenges.

Think in scenarios

Scenario planning is a great tool for developing a strategy or a consortium project, and it is also fantastic for building up optimism in scientific innovation.

By thinking of future possible scenarios, you develop perspective on both negative and positive scenarios. In addition, you can start to think about the factors that drive the negative scenarios and consider ways to mitigate the risk that a particular negative scenario comes to pass.

Do this for your research or for each of the above trends as you learn about them.

Then for each scenario, list out factors that are driving them.

How can you diminish those factors?

What about the factors driving the positive scenarios?

What can you do to amplify them?

By building out a set of scenarios, you can increase your optimism about scientific innovation. More importantly, you will be better equipped to see opportunities that arise.

“Every wall is a door.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Engage patient stakeholders.

Patients are the source of inspiration for those of us working in the life sciences.

It’s motivating to hear about the struggles individuals suffering from a disease face in their everyday lives. Engaging patient stakeholders complements the scenario work.

In fact, building out scenarios is a great project to do with patient stakeholders.

Work in consortia.

Consortia are a great way to boost optimism in scientific innovation. They contain all the elements that have been described here. They provide an opportunity to learn about topics that are adjacent and some times distant from your field of expertise. They are where people work on emerging and long-term vexing concepts in the life sciences.

They are great format for engaging in a meaningful way with patient stakeholders. Consortium projects are full of opportunities to work together on ideas and concepts even if it is just a simple project like outlining a list of best practices or a common protocol for some procedure. The best way to engage with any kind of stakeholder is to work on a project together.

Summary: optimism and leadership

In conclusion, cultivating optimism and scientific literacy are essential for becoming a leader in medical breakthroughs.

By learning about scientific innovation trends, thinking in scenarios, engaging patient stakeholders, and working in consortia, you can develop a more optimistic outlook on the potential of scientific innovation.

This optimism will help you navigate the complexities and challenges inherent in translating medical research into clinical practice.

Remember, every wall is a door, and by focusing on the factors that drive positive scenarios and mitigating those that lead to negative ones, you can open up new opportunities for medical breakthroughs.

Embrace the uncertainty, collaborate with others, and let your optimism guide you as you work towards making a real difference in the lives of patients.

When you are ready, here are three ways we can help you realize your ambitions for medical breakthroughs

1. Facilitating the interaction with stakeholders and using the resulting insights to develop a strategic plan or consortium project using our SIXTHscenario framework

2. Bringing stakeholders together in our Science+ Cafe process that leads to the design of efforts that engage stakeholders as participants such as collaborative analyses, white papers, etc.

3. Guiding you with strategic advice on the implementation of strategic plans, consortium projects and community building

Schedule a time using this link: Schedule Impact Strategy Call

Or email me directly: scottwagers@biosciconsulting.com

We are now accepting up to three new clients for the second half or 2024 .

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References

1. I Asked Bill Gates About His Superpowers—His Answer Is Relevant To You (superpowers4good.com)

2. Duda, G. N., Grainger, D. W., Frisk, M. L., Bruckner-Tuderman, L., Carr, A., Dirnagl, U., ... & Volk, H. D. (2014). Changing the mindset in life sciences toward translation: a consensus. Science translational medicine, 6(264), 264cm12-264cm12.

3. Principe, S., Richards, L. B., Hashimoto, S., Kroes, J. A., Van Bragt, J. J., Vijverberg, S. J., ... & Van Der Zee, A. H. M. (2023). Characteristics of severe asthma patients on biologics: a real-life European registry study. ERJ open research, 9(3).