FUTURE OF HEALTH
8 experts on pandemic-era innovation
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In 1928, Alexander Fleming famously returned from vacation to discover mold growing on a Petri dish. At the time, his peers largely disregarded his discovery of what would become the world’s first antibiotic, penicillin.
More than a decade would pass before scientists would purify it, stabilize it for human use, and secure proof of its efficacy. Ultimately, the timing was right, and penicillin found its use case during World War II, when the global crisis created a need to scale and the British government funded drug production.
Looking back at the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s easy to point out everything that went wrong, and the magnitude of our loss is astounding. But the enormous scale of this problem — coupled with an infusion of capital and a global sense of urgency — has also created the conditions for existing innovations to find their “penicillin moment,” potentially defining healthcare in the decades to come.
Earlier this year, Luminary Labs CEO Sara Holoubek interviewed eight experts about four areas where existing research and inventions found their use case:
The power of public health data
- Ryan Panchadsaram, advisor at Kleiner Perkins and founder of Covid Exit Strategy, on local views of risk.
- Dr. Kristen Honey, chief data scientist at the Department of Health and Human Services, on the pandemic as a catalyst for cross-agency sharing.
Translating data into action
- Dr. Maimuna Majumder, computational health informatics instructor at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, on the unprecedented speed at which we’ve developed an epidemiological understanding COVID-19.
- Dr. Ziad Obermeyer, Blue Cross of California distinguished associate professor at University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, on using data to inform medical decisions at scale — and where algorithms can go wrong due to biases.
Remote everything
- Sukanya Lahiri Soderland, SVP, chief strategy officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA), on remote care and accelerated adoption of telehealth.
- Craig Lipset, founder of Clinical Innovation Partners and co-chair of The Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA), on remote monitoring, studies, and clinical trials.
A new era for vaccines
- Dr. Michael Rosenblatt, chief medical officer of Flagship Pioneering, the investment firm behind Moderna, on messenger RNA (mRNA) and its potential to spur an entirely new class of therapeutics — including new vaccines and non-vaccine applications.
- Marc Koska, founder and head of product at Apiject, on a novel single-use plastic injector that’s poised to address the supply chain constraints of glass vials.
The full article, originally published in MM&M Magazine, is now available on the Luminary Labs website.
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Two school districts in Ohio are using “mastery,” or competency-based education, to close COVID-related learning gaps.
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The Center for an Urban Future collected 250 ideas from New Yorkers to “revive NYC's economy, spark good jobs, and build a more equitable city.”
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More than four in 10 employers plan to add or expand caregiving benefits.
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Wally Funk has logged over 19,600 flying hours and taught more than 3,000 people to fly. In the 1960s, she was excluded from NASA’s astronaut program because of her gender. But this week, she became the oldest person to go into space.
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Cool jobs & opportunities
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Takeda is looking for a Digital & Omnichannel Marketing Franchise Lead for its U.S. Oncology Myeloma Brand team in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Bloomberg Philanthropies is hiring a Government Innovation - Senior Program Manager in New York.
Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is seeking a Research Assistant to work with Belfer Director and former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and the Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The KID Museum is recruiting for several open positions — including Director, Teaching & Program Experience and Managing Director, Community Engagement & Program Innovation — in Bethesda, Maryland.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is searching for a Program Officer, Evidence-Informed Policymaking (EIP) in Menlo Park, California.
The Endless Frontier Labs supports early-stage science and technology startups through goals-oriented mentorship. Join an information session or apply for the 2021-2022 accelerator cohort.
Applications are open for the Kidney Diseases Innovation Fellowship and the Lyme Disease Innovation Fellowship at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Apply by August 19.
We’re also hiring! Current openings at Luminary Labs include:
Learn more about our team and apply online for strategy and innovation consulting roles in New York.
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