American Council advisor, and infectious disease expert Dr. David Shlaes has been writing a blog called "Antibiotics—the Perfect Storm" since 2009. Today, he features a guest blogger, Dr.Tamar Ghosh, who leads the Longitude Prize for the Innovation Lab at Nesta, a charity that is devoted to increasing the innovation capacity of the UK.
Dr. Ghosh writes about the biggest science prize in the UK:
"The Longitude Prize is the UK’s biggest science prize, a 5-year challenge with a £10 million prize fund, and a 300 year legacy. It commemorates the anniversary of the Longitude Act of 1714, the first British challenge prize, which offered the public £20,000 to solve one of the biggest global problems of the time, determining longitude at sea. It was eventually solved when a little-known carpenter, John Harrison, invented the first marine chronometer, H4, surprising the establishment which expected a solution to come from the field of astronomy,. This early achievement demonstrated an early principle of prizes that we have seen time and again: if you create a public challenge, of reputation and profile, a far wider group of innovators are likely to get involved in finding solutions to the problem."
The rest of Dr. Ghosh's commentary can be read here.
Josh Bloom
Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science
Dr. Josh Bloom, the Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, comes from the world of drug discovery, where he did research for more than 20 years. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry.
