[A2k] Wall Street Journal on Gates' Grand Challenges Program

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Gates Charity Bolsters Approach
New Grants Cut Red Tape
In Effort to Speed Funding
For Novel Health Research
By MARILYN CHASE
October 9, 2007; Page A2

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today will start a $100 million
fund to nurture unorthodox approaches to global health, inviting
scientists to bid for small, quickly awarded grants.

While other philanthropies and government entities have dabbled in
backing offbeat medical experiments, the Gates initiative is among the
richest and most ambitious donor-backed programs of this kind.

The initiative follows two disappointments in large trials whose
results were reported recently. The trials showed that the cervical
diaphragm and a vaccine developed by Merck & Co. failed to prevent
infection with the AIDS virus. If the new tack by the world's biggest
private charity bears fruit, it could pave the way for similar moves by
other grant providers.

The Grand Challenges Explorations program, to be announced in Cape
Town, South Africa, will reach out to scientists in Africa and Asia,
where disease is widespread and money is scarce, though it will be open
to all comers. "Talent is grouped in great institutions, but not all of
it," Mr. Gates said in an interview. "There's a real logic to being
where a disease exists."

Typical multimillion-dollar Gates Foundation grants require lengthy
applications supported by data, financial oversight and peer review
often taking six months to a year or more -- which can overwhelm
scientists in underdeveloped countries. "As grants get big, the risk
element can get squeezed out," Mr. Gates said, adding "if you're giving
away $5 million at a whack," it requires accounting oversight and a
mature development plan at odds with novelty.

The new streamlined program will use a shorter application form, and
the review will take a few months. Grantees whose concepts prove
promising can later apply for additional funding. Given the current
atmosphere of fiscal constraint at the National Institutes of Health,
where grants tend to favor traditional science, "the Gates program is a
welcome move toward trying to fund new and high-risk ideas," said
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases at the NIH. He added that the NIH itself has been
trying to address the need to support novelty through its Pioneer
Awards.

As a secondary goal, Mr. Gates said he hopes his foundation's new
grants will encourage scientists in developing countries to stay at
home rather than emigrating.

The family philanthropy of the Microsoft Corp. co-founder and his wife
boasts an endowment of $34.6 billion. So far, it has committed $13.7
billion in grants, with $7.95 billion going to global health programs
addressing AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and childhood vaccines.

Investor Warren Buffett's 2006 pledge of $31 billion of his Berkshire
Hathaway Inc. fortune to the Gates Foundation will eventually double
the pace of annual grant giving to $3 billion by 2009. Now, having
funded many biomedical projects, Gates officials are looking to refill
the pipeline with novel ideas.

"New ideas shouldn't have to battle for oxygen as hard as they do,"
said Tadataka "Tachi" Yamada, the foundation's executive director of
global health. He points out that one "ludicrous" challenge to
conventional wisdom -- the idea that bacteria and not stomach acid
caused ulcers -- eventually won a Nobel Prize and changed the standard
of medical care.

One example Mr. Gates cited was the foundation's sponsorship of a
program that uses radiation to zap malaria parasites in their invasive
stage, known as sporozoites. "Most people look at that and say, 'Whoa,
this is pretty wild,' " Mr. Gates said.

Previous Gates grants have gone to more-mature research projects in
malaria, AIDS and TB prevention. Refilling the epidemic-prevention
pipeline has become more urgent after the failures of the HIV-diaphragm
study and Merck's vaccine.

A detailed call for proposals in the new endeavor is expected in the
first quarter of 2008.

Write to Marilyn Chase at marilyn.chase@wsj.com1
   	URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119189444472753026.html

---------------------------------
Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
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thiru@keionline.org