AFRO-NETS> Grand challenges issued

[Dr Rana Jawad Asghar <jawad@alumni.washington.edu>]

Grand challenges issued
-----------------------
 
Gates initiative joins growing number of urgent research to-do 
lists
 
Ten months after Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced his 
"Grand Challenges in Global Health" research initiative in Davos, 
Switzerland, a hand-picked panel of international scientists has 
drafted a list of 14 challenges, whose solutions could lead to 
important healthcare advances for the developing world. The list 
appears in today's issue of the journal Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/302/5644/398 
 
The 14 challenges include controlling infectious disease through 
new and improved vaccines and better management and eradication 
of the insects that transmit agents of disease. Others call for 
improved nutrition and better disease measurement in both indi-
viduals and populations. Each challenge will receive grants of up 
to $20 million over 5 years or less. The Bill and Melinda Gates 
Foundation is funding this $200 million project, which is admin-
istered by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.
 
A description of deliberations that led to selection of the 14 
global health challenges and an outline of steps to apply for 
funding to address one or more of them are included in a "policy 
forum" article by Grand Challenges Panel Chairman Harold Varmus 
and colleagues.
 
The aim of the Grand Challenges is to guide researchers to spe-
cific scientific or technical breakthroughs that overcome barri-
ers and find solutions to one or more significant health prob-
lems, one of the article's authors, Peter Singer, director of the 
Joint Centre for Bioethics at University of Toronto, told The 
Scientist.
 
"We often talk about the 10/90 gap, where 90% of health research 
resources are devoted to the problems of 10% of the world's popu-
lation. Here is an initiative that is turning the tide on the 
10/90 gap, both through the investment of substantial financial 
resources, but ultimately, and perhaps more importantly, through 
capturing the imagination of and engaging the global scientific 
community to focus on the scientific and technological challenges 
of five billion people in the world," said Singer, who is also a 
member of the Grand Challenges Scientific Advisory Board.
 
Gates' Grand Challenges effort joins a growing list of similar 
initiatives and scientific forums that are forming to tackle the 
world's most daunting problems. In July, the United Nations De-
velopment Programme published the Human Development Report 2003 
proposing a series of international forums be created to help set 
the research priorities required to meet the technological needs 
of the developing world. In the same month, The Millennium Pro-
ject, an international think tank with more than 1500 partici-
pants, released its 2003 State of the Future report, detailing 
global views on the challenges facing humanity today. The Millen-
nium Project has also set its own 15 global challenges.
 
It's still too early to tell if these global challenges and re-
search initiatives are going to work in the long run, said Kevin 
Frost, vice president of clinical research and prevention pro-
grams at the American Foundation for AIDS Research in New York 
City, which works with the National Institutes of Health to fund 
more avant-garde research projects. "It's a gamble, but these 
challenges make us realize that we do have the resources to make 
a difference and improve peoples' lives."
 
So far, some of the earliest initiatives, such as the Global 
Fund, founded by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to 
fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, have not made much head-
way. Part of the problem is funding, said Frost. Despite a com-
mitment of $1.2 billion, the Fund estimates that it needs between 
$7 and $10 billion annually in order to turn tide on those epi-
demics.
 
Still, the global effort to fight AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa 
gives hope. Five years ago, nobody was talking about the HIV 
problem in Africa, even though millions were infected, and today 
we are starting to roll out medicine in Africa, where they are 
receiving triple-combination drugs, said Frost. "The numbers are 
small, but it's a beginning. But if you even raised the idea 5 
years ago at an AIDS meeting you would have been laughed at."
 
There is early evidence that the Grand Challenges in Global 
Health initiative has captured the attention of the global scien-
tific community. More than a thousand submissions came from all 
over the world in response to the call for ideas, said Singer. 
"Ultimately, if the best scientific minds focus on the problems 
affecting five billion people in the world, the initiative will 
be a success," he predicted.
 
Jerome Glenn, director of the Millennium Project, agrees and be-
lieves that in the coming years international forums will be in-
creasingly important to share insights, such as the recent les-
sons learned from the international response to severe acute res-
piratory syndrome. "These [insights] are being shared, studied, 
and taken more seriously," he said.
 
According to Frost, whether research questions are answered in 
the context of these programs is in some way almost secondary. "I 
know that's why they are formed-to catalyze research in a certain 
area-but it's the inspiration of it that's almost the greater 
good because it inspires humanity to aspire to achieve great 
things."
 
What's most important ultimately is the application of the re-
search, said Singer. "If and when a 'Grand Challenge' is solved, 
that scientific or technological solution will still have to be 
implemented appropriately and on a widespread basis, to benefit 
the global poor," he noted. And that may require an entire new 
set of Grand Challenges.
 
Links for this article:
 
D. Martindale, "Gates grants," The Scientist, January 31, 2003. 
http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20030131/05/
 
H. Varmus et al. "Enhanced: Grand Challenges in Global Health," 
Science 302:498-399, October 17, 2003. 
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/302/5644/398
 
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 
2003 
http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/
 
J.C. Glenn, T.J. Gordon, 2003 State of the Future, Washington, 
D.C.: American Council for the UNU, 2002. 
http://www.acunu.org/millennium/sof2003.html
 
The Millennium Project 
http://www.acunu.org/index.html
 
Global Fund 
http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/
 
 
--
Dr Rana Jawad Asghar
Program Manager Child Survival, Mozambique
Provincial Coordinator Sofala Province, Mozambique
Health Alliance International, Seattle, WA, USA
http://depts.washington.edu/haiuw/
Coordinator South Asian Public Health Forum 
http://www.saphf.org
mailto:jawad@alumni.washington.edu 
http://www.DrJawad.com

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