When I first started taking more of an interest in diabetes research and clinical trials a few years ago, I found myself poring over national and local databases listing the studies that involved diabetes. The process was anything but user-friendly.

I had to comb through complicated listings in ClinicalTrials.gov and my local medical institute registry to first find anything relevant, and then attempt to work out what was nearby, whether it was something I had any interest in, and if I might even be eligible for that particular trial. It was incredibly time-consuming and often disappointing to finally find one of interest, and only then discover some "exclusion criteria" that would disqualify me from participating.

So I'm pretty excited about a new diabetes research tool that's a little like an online dating service, in this case matching diabetes patients and researchers. No more need to slog through institutional databases and spend all kinds of time with no guarantee of success! Thanks to the new Living BioBank, established by the nonprofit T1D Exchange, finding clinical research to participate in can be as easy as filling out an online survey, and then being matched with trials for which you are best suited.

The Living BioBank has its "base of operations," so to speak, at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason in Seattle, WA -- meaning that's where participant enrollment is centralized, along with test kit sample collection and distribution to investigators around the U.S.