The D-Challenge is a global focused scientific movement that begins with the end in mind. We are leveraging our connections with Type 1 Diabetes researchers around the world and inviting ALL of them to compete to catalyze innovation and accelerate research towards a practical cure for Type 1 Diabetes. In doing so, we aim to add a solid appreciation of the biology that drives this relentless disease to the current literature and knowledge base.
Type 1 Diabetes is a multifactorial disease that is studied by many scientific disciplines. thesugarscience, is partnering with dkNET (the NIDDK Information Network) to bring the full power of on-line digital resources to the challenge of Type 1 Diabetes. We are inviting you to participate in the D-Challenge, a bio-informatics competition where the winners will claim up to $20,000 in cash prizes to be used to further their research.
Contestants are expected to:
- Attend a kick off meeting for the challenge
- Attend regular check points over the course of the Challenge
- Utilize multiple on-line resources to develop a hypothesis relevant to the mechanisms, treatment or sequelae of T1D
- Manage their data according to FAIR practices for sound science
- Share their protocol through protocols.io
- Use on-line tools to provide preliminary in silico data to test their hypothesis
- Present their work in a written and oral form to a panel of judges
As part of the D-Challenge, several resource providers have provided some starting materials and tutorials to help jump start hypothesis development. We thank our partners:
- The Signalling Pathways Project, which has produced a T1D “Consensome” that looks across multiple public transcriptomic datasets to make robust predictions about signaling pathways that are up or down regulated in T1D
- protocols.io, which will host protocols created during the Challenge.
- The T1D Knowledge Base, which provides browsing, searching, and analysis of human genetic information linked to T1D.
- HIRN: Human Islet Research Network providing data sets.
Ongoing additional support will be provided to registered participants by data expert Neil McKenna PhD.