JDRF launches innovative cure collaboration partnership with Sanford Health

3-year Sanford Award funded to enable a rising research star to pursue a creative, highly compelling scientific concept

New York, NY, June 5, 2009 – The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, the world's leading charitable funder and advocate of diabetes research, said today that it is partnering with Sanford Health, an integrated health care system in South Dakota and the Midwest, in an innovative "cure collaboration" to speed the pace of diabetes research and delivery of cures at the point-of-care.

The JDRF and Sanford Health partnership brings together the patient focus of Sanford's dynamic, integrated healthcare system with JDRF's 40 years of experience and patients-interests first leadership in diabetes research.

The Sanford Project is focused on curing type 1 diabetes; it is one of four initiatives resulting from a $400 million gift to Sanford Health in 2007 by South Dakota businessman and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford. By partnering and leveraging JDRF's unmatched awareness of the leading edge in diabetes related research, The Sanford Project – Cure Collaboration insures the projected $100 million per year investment can be deployed most effectively to build critical resources, cultivate talent and deliver results for individuals and families personally affected by Type 1 diabetes.

The initial phase of the partnership includes The Sanford Award, a three year JDRF grant, funded by Sanford Health. The Sanford Award will identify bold, scientists who are "rising stars" and support their most creative and innovative ideas. "JDRF and Sanford Health recognize that the goal of a cure for Type 1 diabetes will be accelerated through the sharing of knowledge and resources facilitated by a dynamic "cure collaboration"," said David Link, Executive Vice President, Sanford Health.

"The Sanford Project is designed for results, and is intended to be a new way of advancing biomedical research by bridging the worlds of research and clinical treatment," said Alan Lewis, PhD, President and CEO of JDRF. "The Sanford Project – Cure Collaboration enhances JDRF's bedside-to-bench-to-bedside research platforms in regeneration and autoimmunity by linking them to Sanford Health's translational research infrastructure."