The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $200 million grant to the FNIH in January to establish and administer the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a partner in this new initiative, the NIH will identify activities that are appropriate for government funding. Possibilities include the parallel release of announcements to fund joint or associated projects, funding shared resources and training, and announcing funding opportunities for follow-up grants that complement the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.
The intent of the initiative is to engage creative minds from across the world and the breadth of scientific and technology communities, including those who have not traditionally engaged in global health research, to partner in developing solutions to the stated challenges.
"It is high time that the world's scientific community, which has contributed so much to the medical progress achieved in the last century, turns its creative attention to solving the enormous health problems of the developing world," said Dr. Richard Klausner, executive director of the global health program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The initiative is guided by an international scientific board chaired by Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, M.D., president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and former Director of the NIH. The scientific board developed the 14 challenges from more than 1,000 ideas s
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Contact: Charles Pucie
301-402-5311
NIH/Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
16-Oct-2003