Leadership and Innovation in a Networked World

In 2001, Scott Johnson was a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur.He had everything he wanted in life, except for one thing: afflicted with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) for 25 years, he lacked a clear path back to full health.That year, he read a brief article in BusinessWeek about the possibility of myelin repair.Myelin is the protective coating surrounding nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord.It is the destruction of myelin in MS that causes the symptoms of the disease, and even death.Understanding how to repair the myelin damaged by MS could mean stopping the disease in its tracks.So began an investigation that led Johnson in 2003 to found the Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF), a non-profit medical research foundation dedicated to accelerating basic medical research into myelin repair therapies that could dramatically improve the lives of people suffering from MS.Of the many medical research foundations doing good work out in the world, MRF is unique because of its collaborative, plan-driven, managed approach to realizing innovation breakthroughs.Realizing that a broad network of researchers could do more than individual investigators working in relative isolation, Johnson pulled together five leading scientists and their labs asking them to work together in the name of collaborative discovery.