We announced recently that we’ve added RSS feeds to our site.  This is something that may seem a long time in coming, but we wanted to ensure that they were really going to be useful – and as customizable as you might want them to be.  We hope that the options we’ve provided will allow you to keep up on only the things that are most interesting to you, including Challenges of a specific type, all open Challenges, or the latest news on our blog.

We’ve launched a new discussion board, specifically for the IAVI Challenge.  Click the “talk” bubble to access this area.  We’re working on making discussion boards much more widely available – look for more of these in the near future.

Finally, in a move that had some of my colleagues scratching their heads, I’ve decided to provide you with more information than ever about the inner workings at InnoCentive – starting with a glance at Solver demographics.  We talk quite often about the diversity of our marketplace, and I feel strongly that we have built a community that is unparalleled in this respect.  I’m proud to be able to back this statement up with some real data.  In the future, I plan to share even more of this type of information, and would be interested in hearing from you about what you’d most like to learn.

Stay tuned for more on this front, and please let us know what you think – how are we doing?

 Due to a high demand from Solvers, InnoCentive has launched another form of communication to allow Solvers and Seekers discuss Topics around a specific Challenge.  You may have noticed that there is a new button on the IAVI Challenge, “Functional envelope trimer of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus” (located under the Global Health Pavillion), called “Discuss Challenge”.  Specific Topic areas in this forum include: (1) an Introduction to IAVI, (2) Funding, (3) Collaboration, (4) Prizes, and (5) Confidentiality, plus any other Topics that you may want to discuss.  We invite you to take a look at the forum and add to the discussion if you have any questions or comments around the Challenge and/or the IAVI organization. 

For those of you that have not been involved in a Forum, it is basically a message board for Solvers and Seekers to communicate with each other.  Typically, information is communicated in one direction, through the Challenge posting and Press Releases.  However, with the Challenge Forum, Solvers can now ask questions directly to the Seekers, but with some caveats…..we’ll get into those caveats below.

For those of you that have been involved in a Forum, please no trolling, spamming, flaming, baiting, sock puppeting, double posting, or foul language.  You’ve seen it before. 

Structure

Wikipedia defines an Internet Forum as “an online discussion site…… People participating in an Internet forum can build bonds with each other and interest groups will easily form around a topic’s discussion, subjects dealt within or around sections in the forum.”  The InnoCentive Forum is a simple structure where Topics are started and Solvers and Moderators can reply to each one of those Topics, similar to replying to an email or instant message.  To start, click on each of the topics, read the initial post and follow up replies, and add your question or comment to the discussion by clicking “Create New Reply”.  If you want to discuss a new Topic, click “Create New Topic” on the main Forum.    It’s very simple.

Registration, Confidentiality & Public Discussion

Now here are the caveats that I mentioned earlier.  While the Forum was built to allow communication between Solvers and Seekers, it is considered a “semi-public” Forum.  To get to the Forum, you are required to be registered as a Solver, so the identities of the usernames on the forum are known by InnoCentive, but not by the IAVI moderators – maintaining the anonymity between the Solvers and Seekers.  Once you are in the Forum, all Solvers on the InnoCentive website are able to access the discussion topics.  You can ask questions on general approaches on your Solution to the Challenge, but you don’t want to ask or reveal specific details on your approach.  Remember, 170,000+ Solvers can access this, so you don’t want to spill the beans!   But if you feel that your question would help all Solvers, or you’d like some insight on how IAVI would like you to approach the Challenge, feel free to post your questions.  Now, if you have specific questions on your own specific submission, use the Project room and send a message to the Program Manager.  S/he can answer your question specifically in a private environment.

Moderators

On this Forum there are 6 moderators.  Five moderators work directly with IAVI in various groups – program management, communications, and technical.  They will be able to answer any questions you may have on the Challenge.  From InnoCentive, I am the moderator, and will be administrating the Forum.

How to find the Forum

To get to the forum, you should go to the Challenge, and click on the “Discuss Challenge” button.  You will also see some short cuts on the Abstract and in the Project Room that look like this. 

To discuss the Challenge from within the detailed Challenge description, click on the “Discuss Challenge” button on the page.  Please remember that confidential information should not be shared in the Forum.

We hope you’ll go to the Forum and ask the questions you need to ask.  This Challenge has a high award amount of $150,000 plus the potential to collaborate with IAVI on future work.  We’ve even  extended the deadline twice to allow Solvers to ask whatever they want.  It’s a good cause, and we want the Challenge solved as much as you want that money!

Hi Kalpana – thanks for answering my questions today.  Can you tell me about the general state of the search for a vaccine for HIV/AIDS?

Hi Connie.  Although HIV was discovered to be the virus that causes AIDS 25 years ago, the effort to develop a preventive AIDS vaccine has only been a robustly funded initiative in the last decade. In that time, we have seen a tremendous surge in political and financial support for AIDS vaccine development. We have also seen a steady stream of incremental advances that provide the foundation for the AIDS vaccine development efforts now underway across the globe. 

This work has provided scientific evidence to suggest that an AIDS vaccine is possible and has given us clues as to what an effective human vaccine must do. For example, in studies using simian immunodeficiency virus, which causes a disease like AIDS in monkeys, we have learned that broadly neutralizing antibodies can protect against immunodeficiency virus and that live-attenuated vaccines can protect monkeys from infection with the simian equivalent of HIV. 

Today only two AIDS vaccine candidates have completed efficacy testing and unfortunately both proved non-efficacious. We are still in the early stages of the search for a preventive AIDS vaccine. It is typical for vaccines to take decades to develop. We don’t know how long it will take to develop an AIDS vaccine, but we can’t afford to give up. With 2.5 million people becoming newly infected each year, we have no choice but to search for a way prevent people from becoming infected with HIV.

Can you explain why it has been so difficult to create a vaccine for HIV?

The development of an AIDS vaccine is one of the greatest challenges currently facing medical research. HIV is a moving target. It replicates and mutates quickly, generating many subtypes of HIV. Also, unlike other diseases, HIV does not usually elicit broadly-neutralizing antibodies that can prevent infection. What’s more, today we still don’t know how best to trigger an immune response to HIV. Do we need to stimulate cellular immunity or neutralizing antibodies or immunity at the mucosal surfaces where HIV initially takes hold, or do we need a combination of these immune responses? And finally, we don’t know whether a single universal vaccine can create immunity against all the different variations of the HIV virus.

Experts don’t know how long it will take to develop an AIDS vaccine.  But we do know from history that a vaccine is the only way to end a major viral epidemic and that perseverance and long-term investment are necessary to develop any vaccine.

What appealed to you about posting your Challenge on InnoCentive?

InnoCentive has access to a diverse pool of talent from many different disciplines.  And we hope that one or more of these experts will bring a fresh perspective to one of the toughest challenges we face today in advancing AIDS vaccine research and development.

Can you tell us how a solution to this challenge will further the development of a vaccine?

Most experts agree that in order to prevent infection from HIV entirely, an effective AIDS vaccine will have to stimulate broadly neutralizing antibodies.

Today, we have identified from the blood of HIV-infected individuals several broadly neutralizing antibodies that can prevent infection from HIV. What we don’t yet have are immunogens that can stimulate the production of these antibodies. IAVI is challenging InnoCentive Solvers to develop a stable immunogen based on the part of the HIV envelope that is first visible to the body. Immunogens using the HIV envelope have been successfully tested in animal models. The challenge now is to produce an immunogen that remains consistently intact in laboratory testing.  If successful, InnoCentive solvers will have overcome one of the major hurdles facing the development of the next generation of AIDS vaccine candidates.

This Challenge is a bit different than most, because it offers the opportunity for a tiered reward.  Can you tell me how that would work?

A Solver who successfully provides an envelope trimer mimic with the desired antigenicity will initially receive $150K.  IAVI will confirm these results independently and continue to test this protein. If this protein is able to generate broadly neutralizing antibody responses that can effectively thwart viral infection, IAVI will consider providing researchers with a bonus of up to $1 million and/or the opportunity to pursue further related research with support from IAVI.

Thank you – I know our Solvers appreciate knowing a bit more backstory on our Seekers.  Good luck with your Challenge!

Thanks.