43 projects to share $450 million to meet 'Grand Challenges in Global Health'
Forty-three innovative and bold proposals aimed at delivering new solutions to the worlds most difficult and neglected health challenges, today recieved funding totalling $450 million.
The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative today awarded $437 million in research grants divided among 43 winning applications from over 1000 hopeful applicants. The initiative is funded by commitments from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Wellcome Trust and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
"The ultimate goal of the initiative is to create "deliverable technologies" - health tools that are not only effective, but also inexpensive to produce, easy to distribute, and simple to use in developing countries." (Canadian Newswire Group)
"We were amazed by the response," said Harold Varmus, chair of the international scientific board that guides the Grand Challenges. "Clearly, there's tremendous untapped potential among the world's scientists to address diseases of the developing world." (The Guardian)
" Each of the 43 projects seeks to tackle one of 14 major scientific
challenges that, if solved, could lead to important advances in preventing,
treating, and curing diseases of the developing world. The 14 Grand
Challenges, which were identified from among more than 1,000 suggestions from
scientists and health experts around the world, address the following goals:
- Developing improved childhood vaccines that do not require
refrigeration, needles, or multiple doses, in order to improve
immunization rates in developing countries, where each year 27 million
children do not receive basic immunizations
- Studying the immune system to guide the development of new vaccines,
including vaccines to prevent malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV, which
together kill more than 5 million people each year
- Developing new ways of preventing insects from transmitting diseases
such as malaria, which infects 350-500 million people every year
- Growing more nutritious staple crops to combat malnutrition, which
affects more than 2 billion people worldwide
- Discovering ways to prevent drug resistance because many drugs that
were once successful at treating diseases like malaria are losing their
effectiveness
- Discovering methods to treat latent and chronic infections such as
tuberculosis, which nearly a third of the world's population harbors in
their bodies
- More accurately diagnosing and tracking disease in poor countries that
do not have sophisticated laboratories or reliable medical
recordkeeping systems" (CNW Group)
Links:
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/GlobalHealth/Announcements/Announce-050627.htm
The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1516291,00.html
Canadian Newswire:
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/June2005/27/c6464.html