LabCures: research crowdfunding by lab, not by project

This very recently launched crowdfunding site is a spin-off venture [1] of the Bay Area based Buck Institute for Research on Aging [2].

A bunch of people (such as the folk at experiment.com ) are in search of the magic bullet that makes KickStarter-like crowdfunding work well for research. I don't think a straight port can work, as the incentives and motivations are all very different. But I'm optimistic that someone will find the magic recipe that will open the floodgates.

This is an age of distintermediation, and crowdfunding seems like something that will inevitably take over a chunk of the sort of research fundraising that presently flows through big per-disease charities. But do people who go beyond a nebulous support for curing a specific disease really want to pick and choose projects, or are they happier rooting for teams? If the latter, science crowdfunding may inevitably shift in the direction of a LabCures-like approach.

[1]: http://www.marinij.com/novato/ci_26246445/new-buck-institute...

[2]: http://www.buckinstitute.org/