It’s no secret that the process of taking discovery biology and turning it into a treatment for any disease, like Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis, is broken. It takes too long and it costs too much money. However, as with most questions we ask these days, there may be a search engine out there that has the answer. Or at least one of the brains behind the search engine does.

Sergey Brin, one of the master mathematical minds behind Google, is using his knowledge of large data sets and the information they can provide, as well as his large wallet (he’s worth about $15 billion) to do two unthinkable things: significatly fund research for a disease he does not have and rethink the entire way scientists conduct that research.

In a recent article by Thomas Goetz, Senior Editor at Wired Magazine, Sergey Brin exposes the Parkinson’s predicament he has found himself in. Learning that his genetic code contained LRRK2, a gene that has been associated with an increased likelihood of developing Parkinson’s, Brin has begun the process of decreasing his potential to incur for the devastating disease bit by bit.

Goetz writes about how Brin is making adjustments to the environmental factors that affect his life, such as his exercise routine and caffeine consumption. But these changes, to Brin, are not enough to lower his potential of developing Parkinson’s to the nearly impossible level he’d like. So instead, Brin decided to take matters into his own hands, by not only funding research for a disease he has yet to, or may never, develop but also taking the time to hypothesize how one might fix the broken system of medical research.

Image of the LRRK2 Gene

So now you may be wondering why you are reading this article on the Myelin Repair Foundation blog when it seems to have nothing to do with MS and everything to do with Parkinson’s research. But here’s the thing. At the MRF we like to surround ourselves with people who have innovative ideas. People who take what’s presented before them and ask, how can I make this work better? What we, at the MRF, see in Sergey Brin is someone who is as equally as frustrated with waiting for cures as we are.

By financially supporting Parkinson’s research, Brin is speeding up the pace to find a treatment. He says, “Generally the pace of medical research is glacial compared to what I’m used to in the Internet, we could be looking lots of places and collecting lots of information. And if we see a pattern, that could lead somewhere.” But it takes more than just money to make something happen – it also takes an idea. And that’s just what he had in mind when he came up with his cutting edge way to slice the time it takes to develop treatments into a fraction of what it once was.

Brin, an expert in algorithms, wants to use what is called market-basket analysis, a computer science term that names the process of mining large data sets for useful associations. This way, scientists can begin with tons of data, formulated by an outpouring of observational patients, and then wade into the muck of it all, searching for “patterns and correlations.” Now, working with the Parkinson’s Institute, the Fox Foundation and his wife’s company, 23andMe, Brin will begin experimenting with his new take on the scientific method. They will use 10,000 people in their search to attempt to find a meaningful connection between the participant’s environmental factors and or family history and their disease progression etc.

With people like Brin and the MRF, who can back up their innovative ideas with funds, it looks like they’re going to give the current drug development system a run for its money. And if it pans out for Parkinson’s, who knows what the minds at Google could do for MS.

To read more about Sergey Brin’s philanthropic work, check out Tom Goetz’s article on the internet version of Wired Magazine at http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_sergeys_search/

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