Stefano Bertozzi, MD, an expert in health economics, has been named the new HIV director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s global health program, reports The Seattle Times.

According to the article, Bertozzi will manage grants for HIV vaccine development, biomedical prevention research, development and resistance monitoring, diagnostics and strategies for introducing and increasing interventions. He has 11 years of experience as the director of Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health’s (INSP) Center for Evaluation Research & Surveys. He also chairs the Steering Committee of aids2031, an international consortium that searches for innovative ideas today that will change the pandemic by 2031, which will mark 50 years since the first report of AIDS.

“His intimate knowledge of the medicine, science, economics and policy of HIV will help make this important portfolio have the most impact,” said Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates foundation’s global health program.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent nearly $12 billion on global health since 1994.