on June 4, 2007
From June 4 to 6 the participants of the Gates Grand Challenge 4 met in Lugano for a Scientific Progress Meeting. IRB researcher Markus Manz and his team are part of the distinguished international team dedicated to meeting Gates Foundation Grand Challenge Number 4 to:“Devise Reliable Testing Systems for New Vaccines”.
The 65 Participants at the meeting were able to exchange ideas and experiences in an intensive three-day session in Lugano. The next meeting will be held in Cape Town, South Africa.The purpose of the meeting is to update the collaborators on progress made and to identify potential problems to be solved. Background of the Grand Challenges: In January 2003, Bill Gates announced the establishment of a medical research initiative focused on finding solutions to critical problems in global health. Since then, scientists and public health experts around the world have worked together to define the Grand Challenges in Global Health and develop proposals to solve them. Why Grand Challenges? The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative aims to engage creative minds from across scientific disciplines — including those who have not traditionally taken part in global health research — to work on critical problems that usually receive little attention.
The 14 Grand Challenges in Global Health serve seven long-term goals to improve health in the developing world:
- Goal 1 – Improve Childhood Vaccines.
- Goal 2 – Create New Vaccines.
- Goal 3 – Control Insects that Transmit Agents of Disease.
- Goal 4 – Improve Nutrition to Promote Health.
- Goal 5 – Improve Drug Treatment of Infectious Diseases.
- Goal 6 – Cure Latent and Chronic Infection.
- Goal 7 – Measure Health Status Accurately and Economically in Developing Countries.
The initiative’s partners are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and the Wellcome Trust.
