Gates Foundation to Finance Search for H.I.V. Vaccine - New York Times

Gates Foundation to Finance Search for H.I.V. Vaccine - New York Times - Say what you will about Bill Gates' and Microsoft, but this man and his wife have comitted to humanitarian causes like no one I have seen in my lifetime.

NYT reports:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded more than a quarter of a billion dollars today to researchers in 19 countries to speed the lagging development of an H.I.V. vaccine.

The grants are the largest private investment in making such a vaccine, the foundation said. They represent a significant shift in emphasis, to large-scale collaborative projects instead of small teams of researchers working independently.
The money will be given over five years to 16 scientific teams, including two New York groups. The scientists applied for the grants before Warren E. Buffett announced last month that he was giving $31 billion to the Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation has made development of an effective vaccine against H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, a major goal, and the new grants bring to $528 million the foundation’s investment for this purpose.

By contrast, the National Institutes of Health has spent $3.4 billion since the 1980’s to develop a vaccine.

A vaccine to fight H.I.V., the human immunodeficiency virus, is the best hope to control the AIDS epidemic, health officials and experts say. But that hope had been frustrated again and again.