Gates Foundation Seeking Grant Proposals For $100M Initiative To Support Research On Infectious Diseases, Including HIV/AIDS

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Article Date: 05 Mar 2008 - 5:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday announced that it will begin accepting grant proposals on March 31 for the first round of its $100 million initiative to fund research on infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports. The Grand Challenges Explorations is an expansion of the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, which was launched in 2003 to support new technologies to advance global health, according to the AP/Chronicle (AP/Houston Chronicle, 3/3).

Grand Challenges Explorations, announced in October 2007, targets scientists in Africa and Asia -- where diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are widespread -- but will accept proposals from scientists worldwide. The program uses a shorter application form that will be reviewed in a few months, compared with six months or more for typical grant applications. The grants will support hundreds of early-stage research ventures that involve scientists from multiple disciplines. The program also will focus on quickly evaluating a large number of ideas that could lead to new vaccines, diagnostics, drugs and other technologies (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 10/10/07).

First-round grants will consider proposals in four areas:

• Innovative approaches to HIV prevention or treatment methods that go beyond current vaccine research, antiretroviral drugs and other strategies;
  
  
• Original approaches to understanding latent TB, with the goal of finding new processes to detect and eradicate latent infection and prevent transmission;
  
  
• Unproven methods aimed at protecting against infectious diseases, such as using natural or synthetic immune responses or eliminating the need for an effective immune response; and
  
  
• New techniques for discovering or delivering drugs that limit the development of resistance (Gates Foundation release, 3/3).
  

The Gates Foundation will accept proposals for the first round of funding through May 30. Each initial grant will total $100,000, and projects that prove successful will be eligible for additional funding of $1 million or more (AP/Houston Chronicle, 3/3).

The Gates Foundation will select and award grants within about three months of the May 30 deadline. "Breakthrough ideas can come from anywhere, and we hope this new process will encourage a broad range of scientists from around the world to bring their ideas to the table," Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation's Global Health Program, said, adding, "We're especially interested in reaching people who work outside the field of global health, innovators in the developing world and young investigators" (Gates Foundation release, 3/3).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.