Diabetes Research Designed To Prevent, Cure, Care And Treat This Disease

One out of every hundred Americans has type 1 diabetes. Millions of children and adults struggle with this autoimmune disease. Despite these numbers, funding has decreased for research to prevent, cure, and better manage the disease. Of the funding available, 97% goes to established scientists with conventional projects. Scientists starting out in diabetes research, also known as early-career scientists, have a difficult time finding money to support their innovative ideas.

Considering Albert Einstein developed the general theory of relativity at the age of 26, Frederick Sanger determined the structure of insulin at age 34, and Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of the DNA molecule at age 37 – just imagine our world today if these scientists had not received funding for their research?

DRC created a platform connecting donors directly with early-career scientists throughout the country, enabling them to perform research designed to prevent and cure type 1 diabetes, minimize its complications, and improve the quality of life for those living with the disease.

Early-career scientists from across the country submit their projects and a panel of more than 80 of the leading diabetes experts review it for innovation, feasibility, value, and achievability. As established scientists, DRC’s panel of experts donate their time and expertise to encourage the next generation of diabetes investigators to push the envelope.

The time from application to funding can be as little as 12 weeks, compared to over a year for many research grants, and 100% of research funds go directly to the scientists in 2015. To ensure transparency, each researcher provides updates on their project, posting final outcomes on DRC’s website.

Dr. Todd Brusko from the University of Florida successfully funded his project through DRC. He received $50,000 to begin working on his project titled, “Can we engineer a patient’s immune cells to stop the autoimmune attack that causes type 1 diabetes?”

“The Brusko lab is incredibly grateful for the donation received to drive this exciting research project forward. Conducting research on this scale is a team effort,” says Brusko.

The Diabetes Research Connection was established in 2012 by five tireless proponents of diabetes research. Dr. Alberto Hayek, emeritus professor from the University of California and Scientific Director at Scripps/Whittier Diabetes Institute in San Diego; Doctors Nigel Calcutt and Charles King, diabetes research scientists affiliated with the University of California, David Winkler, an attorney, entrepreneur and venture philanthropist who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of six, and Amy Adams, a writer and business owner whose son has lived with type 1 diabetes for most of his life.

“As someone who has lived with type 1 diabetes for more than 50 years, and who has other family members and friends who have diabetes, I know firsthand how this disease impacts a person’s life and the lives of those around them,” says Winkler.

Alberto Hayek, M.D., co-founder and president of The Diabetes Research Connection and world-renowned diabetes expert believes that the lack of funding for early, discovery-stage projects is one of the biggest problems in research. “With DRC, we are giving scientists the resources to test and validate research that departs from conventional thinking, because the opportunity to pursue new paths is when and where breakthroughs occur,” says Hayek.

For more information on the remarkable work being done at the Diabetes Research Connection, please visit the website at: http://www.diabetesresearchconnection.org, or connect with them on Twitter @DiabetesRsrch or Facebook.com/ DiabetesResearchConnection.

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The Diabetes Research Connection (DRC) is a nonprofit located in San Diego, CA, that connects donors with scientists just starting their career in diabetes research, also known as early-career scientists, to fund their highly innovative and peer-reviewed research in hopes of finding groundbreaking ways to prevent, cure, and better manage type 1 diabetes.

Support Diabetes Research Projects

 

Running your home like a business

How to Run Your Home More like a CEO
4 Tips for Time & Budget Management from a Business Development Strategist

All successful CEOs have one thing in common: They’re able to maintain a big-picture perspective. It’s also something successful moms have in common, says Zenovia Andrews, a business strategist, speaker, author and mom who coaches entrepreneurs and CEOs on time and budget management.

“In business, CEOs implement a process that achieves efficient time and resource management in the most cost-effective way; sounds a lot like a mom, doesn’t it?” says Andrews, founder and CEO of The MaxOut Group, a company devoted to empowering and teaching entrepreneurs development strategies to increase profits. 

“If every mom were a CEO, America would rule the world!”

Andrews, author of the new book “All Systems Go – A Solid Blueprint to Build Business and Maximize Cash Flow,” (www.zenoviaandrews.com), suggests the following tips for moms to better manage money and time.

•  CEOs utilize apps, and so should CEO Moms. When a CEO’s personal assistant isn’t around or, if it’s a small business and she doesn’t have one, then apps do nicely. There are several apps for moms, including Bank of Mom – an easy way to keep track of your kids’ allowances. Set up an account for each child and track any money they earn for chores or allowance. The app also allows you to track their computer and TV time as well as other activities.

•  Measurement is the key to knowledge, control and improvement. CEOs have goals for their businesses and Moms have goals for their family members. In either case, the best way to achieve a big-picture goal is to identify action steps and objectives and a system for measuring progress. Want to improve your kids’ test scores, help your husband lose weight or – gasp – free some time for yourself? There are four phases to help track progress: planning, or establishing goals; collection, or conducting research on your current process; analysis – comparing information from existing processes with the new one; and adapting, or implementing the new process.

•  Understand your home’s “workforce.” A good CEO helps her employees grow and develop, not only for the company’s benefit, but for the employee’s as well. Most people are happiest when they feel they’re learning and growing, working toward a goal, which may be promotion within the company or something beyond it. When they feel the CEO is helping with that, they’re happier, more productive, more loyal employees. Likewise, CEO Moms need to help their children gain the skills and knowledge they need not only to succeed in general but to achieve their individual dreams.

•  A well-running household is a community effort; consider “automated” systems. In business, automated systems tend to be as clinical as they sound, typically involving technology. Yet, there’s also a human resource element. Automated systems are a must for CEO Moms, and they tend to take the form of scheduling at home. Whose night is it for the dishes, or trash? One child may be helpful in the kitchen, whereas another may be better at cleaning the pool.

About Zenovia Andrews

Zenovia Andrews, www.zenoviaandrews.com, is a business development strategist with extensive experience in corporate training, performance management, leadership development and sales consulting with international clients, including Pfizer, Inc. and Novartis Pharmaceuticals. A sought-after speaker and radio/TV personality, she is the author of “All Systems Go” and “MAXOut: I Want It All.”

Guest Post from Gordon Tredgold, author of Leadership: It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint

I am Great at My Job – Should I Be a Manager

As we progress in our careers, the skills which allow us to advance are usually expertise in our area, this could be accounting, sales, marketing, etc., and this can lead to us being out of our depth at higher levels as different skills are required, e.g. management and leadership skills.

There is a well-known theory, called the Peter Principle, which explains this very well, in that they state “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his, or her, level of incompetence”.

How does this happen well basically: We do a job well, we’re promoted. Then we do that job well and we’re promoted again. This happens in succession until we eventually rise to a position that we can no longer do well — or to our level of incompetence.

But in reality, the skills required for the new role are different to those that allowed us to be successful in the old role, and we either lack the training or the competence needed.

First we become experts, then we move into team leading, using our technical expertise to lead other experts, often still doing hands-on work ourselves.

This transition is not usually that difficult, as we still have the opportunity to correct mistakes through our own efforts.

But as we then move to being responsible for multiple teams, then we start to need different skills, our technical expertise becomes less valuable, and our management skills become more important, we need to focus on planning, control systems, feedback mechanisms, performance reviews, salary review, staff development, etc., etc.

Probably none of this has been taught to us as part of our earlier role, and then as we advance even further to managing departments, or even our own businesses we start to need leadership skills. Being able to create a vision, inspire the organisation, etc, all of which are a far cry from what we learned at the start of our career.

It’s also true that some of the skills are conflicting and may not help as we advance, someone who is the best football player may not make the best manager. It’s not impossible, but it’s also true that all the best football managers were not the best footballers.

As we progress we need to be able to learn these different skills, often we are provided training, but this is not something that is easily learned in the classroom. We may get mentoring, but by someone who has progressed without the right skill for the role that they are doing either, and consequently they compound the problem. With the end result of  the blind leading the blind, as it were.

I remember my first day as project manager; I had taken over from the previous project manager who was on maternity leave.

Prior to that I had been the Functional Architect, Test and Implementation Manager for the system of which I had now become Project Manager, I thought this was all going to be dead easy.

No one knew the system better than I did, I had designed it, tested it, and implemented it, I knew everything.

I can honestly say that, all that knowledge and expertise was only useful for about 10% of my work going forward.

On my first day in charge I was requested to a meeting with my Test Manager, she was clearly upset, and wanted me to provide some help, dead easy, I was a not only a testing expert but had designed the entire testing suite for this system.

When I sat down in the meeting she said to me “I have found a lump in my breast and I am scared that its cancer, what should I do”.

I can honestly say that nothing in my career, or my life, had prepared me for that moment.

It was then that I realised that leading was going to be a significantly job from doing, or managing.

This had not been covered on any of the project management or leadership trainings that I had taken.

I managed the situation in the only way I knew how, which was by showing I cared and trying to console her, and getting her to seek medical attention.

As it turned out, it was just a lump and not cancer, but for me it was a great lesson, showing me that I still had an awful lot to learn.

I was fortunate that, as I knew everything about the system, the work related to the system only demanded a small amount of my time, in comparison to the time in need to spend on the things not related to the system. Generally people issues.

Only 10% of what I had learnt and new from my previous role was any value in my new role, I had to learn the other 90% on the job, and much of it had never been covered by any trainings I had taken.

My boss had just assumed I had been good at what I had done before, so hopefully I would be good in my new role.

I wasn’t properly prepared for the role!

When developing people for leadership or senior management roles, or when looking to go into business for our selves, we need to have the right skills for these new roles in order to be successful.

If not, then we risk creating the next victims of the Peter Principle and will have promoted someone to a level where they could be incompetent and fail, or we have started a business that could go bust.

About Gordon Tredgold

Gordon Tredgold is the author of Leadership: It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint. Learn more about him at http://www.leadership-principles.com/en/ and about his book at http://amzn.to/1fW2lmX  

Gordon has worked in IT for over 20 years and is a specialist in Transformational Leadership, Operational Performance Improvement, Organisational Development, Creating Business Value via IT, and Program and Change Management.

Gordon has an excellent Global and International experience having lived and worked in UK, Belgium, Holland, Czech Republic, USA and Germany. He also has multi sector knowledge including FMCG, Logistics, Utilities, Telecoms, Aviation, Banking and Finance.

About – Leadership: It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint

Leadership: It’s a Marathon not Sprint, is a pragmatic Leadership guide, explaining leadership principles in an  easy to use, easy to understand and more importantly easy implement style.

The book is split into 26 chapters, one for each mile of the marathon. In each chapter i explain a leadership principle in detail, provide examples of that principle being used in a business context, then each chapter concludes with how that principle was applied to my running goal of running my first Marathon at the age of 52.

This book will be of interest to existing leaders and people looking to move into leadership.

Clear, straightforward advice bases on the principles of Simplicity, Transparency and Focus.

Visit Gordon Tredgold’s blog – http://www.leadership-principles.com/en/

Leadership It’s a Marathon Not a Sprint – http://amzn.to/1fW2lmX