Gates gives $287 million for HIV vaccine research

News about the Gates Foundation making an enormous contribution to global health has become nearly a weekly occurrence lately. Today's headline is the announcement of 16 grants totaling $287 million to continue work toward a possible HIV vaccine. Here's the New York Times story, the AP story, and the press release from Gates with an accompanying background document offering details on the recipients and their projects.

The amount of funding is impressive in isolation but is even more staggering when compared to the total dollars directed to HIV vaccine work in years past. In 2004, for example, U.S. research totaled $582 million, with an additional $120 million worldwide. Yesterday's announcement marks a significant investment in the work and another strong show of support for it from Gates.

The Gates Foundation has been an active supporter of HIV vaccine research for several years, playing central roles in the creation and launch of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise (which we previously wrote about here). In fact, it's often difficult to determine where the Gates Foundation ends and the Enterprise begins, and vice versa. The grants announced yesterday fund projects linked to the Scientific Strategic Plan of the Global Vaccine Enterprise, awarded to very prominent vaccine researchers including Barton Haynes of Duke and David Ho of Rockefeller University, among others.