Gates Foundation Challenges World's Scientists

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a research program for improving the health of people in developing countries. The first phase will seek to identify the leading causes of death in poorer countries, to be followed by an international US$200 million competition designed to entice scientists to find ways to prevent those causes of death. The program was announced at the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) by Mr. Gates, who is the founder of Microsoft. He emphasized that health problems are preventing economic growth in poorer countries.

Around four billion people live in developing countries, representing two-thirds of the world's population, yet only 10% of all medical research is dedicated to diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, malnutrition and other conditions causing 90% of worldwide health problems. Instead, most researchers are focusing on "rich world” diseases, according to Mr. Gates.

An international panel of scientists will decide on specific challenges in global health that would lead to improved well being and fewer deaths. Dr. Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY) and formerly a director of the US National Institutes of Health, has been appointed chairman of the panel. During the summer of 2003, the panel will publish a list of priorities. Among the challenges being considered are: finding new approaches to protect children from diarrhea and respiratory infections, finding new approaches to prevent and treat patients with AIDS, and finding a way to block the reactivation of tuberculosis.

Following this phase, grants of up to US$20 million each will be awarded over the next three to five years. These will probably be awarded to coalitions of scientists from different institutions and disciplines and also to some individual scientists. The grants are to be administered by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA). Mr. Gates said the program was inspired by a German mathematician, David Hilbert, who challenged other mathematicians in 1900 to solve 23 problems. This resulted in mathematic breakthroughs and other advances, including the development of computers.





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