Mike and the Milken Institute hosted the Lake Tahoe Innovation Retreat in September 2011, gathering some of the leading minds in medicine, government agencies, biopharmaceutical companies, philanthropists and patient advocates to challenge the notion of business as usual and take an entirely fresh approach to jumpstarting innovation in research and development. Participants agreed on several approaches to accelerate medical science and save lives, including: re-examine how risk is defined; fund young investigators; clear pathways to more quickly move innovative treatments from research labs to practical applications; use innovative tools such as crowdsourcing and social media to harness society’s brain power; bring private and public sectors together to share information; and focus on diseases – obesity, diabetes and neurological disorders – where the greatest impact can be made.