Gates Foundation Launches $100 Million Initiative to Spur Innovation in Global Health Research

Gates Foundation Launches $100 Million Initiative to Spur Innovation in Global Health Research

October 10, 2007

Fast-Track Grants Initiative to Support Hundreds of
Research Projects Involving Scientists Around the World

    CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Oct. 10 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ --


    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced today
that it is committing $100 million over five years to create
a new fast-track grants initiative to support innovative
global health research.  The initiative's goal is to
encourage scientists worldwide to explore creative,
unorthodox ideas that could lead to major breakthroughs
against some of the greatest health challenges facing poor
countries.

    The new initiative, called Grand Challenges
Explorations, will support hundreds of early-stage research
projects - many pursuing ideas that have never before been
tested, and involving scientists from a wide range of
disciplines.  The Explorations initiative will focus on
rapidly evaluating a large number of innovative ideas that
could lead to new vaccines, diagnostics, drugs, and other
technologies targeting diseases that claim millions of
lives every year.
 
    "The biggest advances in health often come from
unexpected places," said Dr. Tachi Yamada, president
of the Gates Foundation's Global Health Program.  "To
effectively tackle diseases like AIDS and malaria, we need
to encourage the best and brightest minds to take risks on
novel ideas.  Not all will bear fruit, but those that do
could revolutionize the field of global health."
 
    Dr. Yamada announced the Explorations initiative today
at a meeting of 700 global health researchers held in Cape
Town, South Africa.  He was joined by the Rev. Desmond
Tutu, archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, and Graca Machel,
chancellor of the University of Cape Town.

    New Funding Expands Grand Challenges in Global Health
Initiative

    The Explorations initiative is an expansion of the
Gates Foundation's commitment to the Grand Challenges in
Global Health initiative, which was launched in 2003 to
accelerate the discovery of new technologies to improve
global health.  To date, the foundation has provided $450
million to support more than 40 projects on topics such as
making childhood vaccines easier to use in poor countries,
and creating new ways to control insects that spread
disease.

    "The scientific community has shown tremendous
interest in the Grand Challenges initiative, and the
projects funded so far are beginning to show important
progress," said Dr. Harold Varmus, president and CEO
of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and chair of the
scientific board that oversees the Grand Challenges in
Global Health initiative.  "The new Explorations
initiative will help to further increase innovation in
global health research."

    The Explorations initiative will use a new approach to
grantmaking that is a significant departure from the Gates
Foundation's usual grantmaking process.  Grant applicants
will be asked to submit relatively short funding proposals,
which will be reviewed on a fast-track schedule. 
Explorations grants will be approximately $100,000 each,
and successful projects will be eligible for additional
funding.

    "We want to make it as easy as possible for people
with exciting ideas to move their projects forward,"
Dr. Yamada said.

    Explorations grants will be solicited and awarded
multiple times per year on a rolling basis, with each
funding round addressing a few specific topics or themes. 
The first call for proposals will be announced in the first
half of 2008, with the first grants expected to be announced
by fall 2008.  Application instructions will be posted on
the Grand Challenges in Global Health website,
http://www.gcgh.org.

    Guided by the belief that every life has equal value,
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all
people lead healthy, productive lives.  In developing
countries, it focuses on improving people's health, and
giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and
extreme poverty.  In the United States, it seeks to ensure
that all people, especially those with the fewest
resources, have access to the opportunities they need to
succeed in school and life.  Based in Seattle, the
foundation is led by CEO Patty Stonesifer and Co-chair
William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and
Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.


    For more information, please contact:

     Christopher Adasiewicz
     The Corkery Group, Inc. for The Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation
     Phone:    [phone]
     Email:    [e-mail]
     Website:  http://www.gcgh.org