While down in Florida, I had the amazing opportunity to visit the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami. The private tour ranged from speaking with Gary Kleiman who provided detailed information on medical advancements on a layman’s level to being introduced to all the troops (scientists and bio-med engineers) in the trenches. At each stage, more information was shared with Mandy (my girlfriend) and me than I could have dreamed of.
During the visit, my mind was already churning anticipating the moment I’d be able to share the technology I was seeing with you all. When I returned, I recognized there were so many awesome things that I saw and I was having a hard time outlining where to begin. But suddenly, I realized that I’d be doing you an injustice by just writing about the the new technologies being used because you can find all that out on your own at http://www.diabetesresearch.org/Research/ResearchMain.htm and since I’m no scientist, I’d probably fudge up a lot of it anyway. Instead, I’m going to focus on the people that I met and the culture of the Diabetes Research Institute because you can’t read about that on any website, and 99.9% of you, unfortunately, will probably never have the opportunity to meet the people working day in and day out to cure your disease.
Let me start off by saying that if my high school science teachers exuded as much excitement about their work as these people did, I think there is a very good chance that medicine and science would have been my chosen career. It is extraordinary to hear scientists and engineers sharing knowledge with me with the kind of enthusiasm for a Cure that I have only witnessed in other people with diabetes.
You know when you’re sharing a story with friends and you simply can’t hold back a smile because you’re so excited to have them hear it? Those same smiles were on the faces of EVERY SINGLE employee. It gave me goosebumps just listening to them. I can only describe it as witnessing greatness. These are some of the top scientists, engineers, and physicians in the world. For them to tell me about their accomplishments and ideas was something I had been looking forward to for a long time. But to hear them share these thoughts with me with such excitement was something that, quite frankly, I was not expecting.
In my previous life on Wall Street, I dealt with a number of scientists, researchers, and professors who were involved in conducting trials for research. In fact, one scientist concentrated solely on Type 2 diabetes. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that every single conversation I had with these people included, in one way or another, complaining about the amount of grant money they were (or rather were not) receiving. That’s just the nature of the beast. At the DRI, these feelings, while I’m sure shared, were not mentioned and not focused on.
It is my belief that focusing on negativity like “Why is grant money being pulled?” or “This economy is really screwing me” is totally counter-productive, yet I’ve seen it be the main focus of so many scientists’ minds. It is simply not the case at the DRI.
Another thing I have never experienced on Wall Street, except from friends at Goldman Sachs, is a true love for the company you work for. Every single person we were introduced to was so passionate about the Diabetes Research Institute that the sentiment seeped out of their pores. There was a sense of morale in the air that many of the top businesses in the world would be envious of. In particular, the DRI has many different focuses, including stem cells, islet harvesting, and auto-immunity drugs, that are all working towards a Cure…just in different ways. The thing that separates the DRI from any other Institute that I know of is that most of this work is being done under the same roof. That creates a mecca of knowledge and expertise in different but complimentary fields.
The results are fantastic. Geniuses from different fields are constantly meeting, brainstorming, and helping each other. Imagine the headquarters of Google, Apple, NASA, GE and Facebook were all in the same building and all these companies were working towards one united goal, and no one was competing. Imagine the results!
A Company’s “people” is its biggest asset. Based on this notion, I would value the Diabetes Research Institute as a zillion dollar company. Personally, I will be dedicating a lot more of my time raising funds for the foundation. You should, too.
Also, do yourself a favor, take a few minutes out of your day and watch this Brian Williams report on stem cells.
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