October 10, 2007

Gates Foundation Welcomes Innovative Research

At a meeting in South Africa on Tuesday, October 9, officials at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced plans to commit $100 million over the next five years to fund innovative research initiatives designed to tackle health challenges in poor countries.

Through a new initiative called Grand Challenges Explorations, the foundation will support hundreds of projects that will hopefully lead to new vaccines, drugs and technologies that will tackle global diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

“The biggest advances in health often come from unexpected places,” Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program said.  “To effectively tackle diseases like AIDS and malaria, we need to encourage the best and brightest minds to take risks on novel ideas.”

The grants, approximately $100,000 each, will be made multiple times per year on a rolling basis.