It’s about time. All those terrible Kickstarters for crappy bands and crappy movies make so much money—why shouldn’t those funds be able go to medical research?
Molly Lindquist thought a similar, maybe less harsh, thing. She created Consano, a nonprofit crowdfunding site, to help cure cancer and provide funding for more worthwhile medical research in all sorts of fields. The site allows donors to browse through a catalogue of medical research projects at universities and research institutions, and then contribute directly to the ones they wish.
All the projects are thoroughly vetted and approved. Even if projects don’t meet their monetary goal, the labs are able to keep the funding. The federal dollars that usually fund medical research are under more constraint than ever, and since the crowdsourcing model seems to work so well for Kickstarter, Consano feels particularly necessary.
Lindquist gave an interview to TechCrunch in which she talked about Consano, her history with breast cancer, and the future of medical research.
Look, that new film or movie deserves funding too, but it’s high time scientists had their own crowdfunding site. If you’ve got some cash to spare, browse the site and donate.
H/T TechCrunch | Photo via Army Medicine/Flickr