http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040611/02

A global program styled on the Human Genome Project gets the nod from world leaders

By Robert Walgate



MONTREUX-The world's leading industrial powers have given their support to a US proposal for an international alliance to accelerate HIV vaccine research, US President George Bush announced yesterday (June 10) at the conclusion of the G8 meeting in Sea Island, Georgia.

The idea is to create "a virtual consortium" based on a joint strategic plan, Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a briefing yesterday. "When other nations. decide they want to align their own resources or put new resources into vaccine development, there will be a strategic plan framework with which they can synergize," he said.

Scientists gathered here in Switzerland at a vaccine development conference warmly welcomed the support for the new "Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise," a concept developed by Richard Klausner and colleagues at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

José Esparza from the Gates Foundation said: "The G8 statement is major political recognition that prevention is a major objective of the international community-and that vaccines will be the best long-term hope."

"I am very excited," Esparza told The Scientist. "This may bring new resources, but in addition to that, we need to align existing resources into a better game plan." Funding on HIV vaccines could and should increase by "an order of magnitude," he said, from the current $540-$570 million annually. But the enterprise will not be a pool of money-rather a set of collaborative agreements, with different funders supporting individual components of the plan, Esparza said.

"It means a new way of behaving as a global community of problem solvers," Esparza said. "Sharing information, deferring to information rather than advocacy, and finding the right balance between cooperation and competition."

In broad strokes, the enterprise will be alliance of independent agencies and groups who work to a jointly developed scientific plan. The concept is to identify and prioritize the most critical scientific questions and rapidly deploy resources to find answers. There will be common standards for assessing research results and a maximum of sharing of data, resources, and knowhow.

Partners signing up already include many research bodies, individual groups, commercial firms, developing countries, and international agencies, said Esparza.

Working groups from 15 countries and UN agencies have already drafted elements of the strategic plan. A steering committee is now finalizing and coordinating these recommendations, and during a meeting in Washington, DC, last month, committee members concluded that it was crucial for the plan to be ambitious, said Esparza. "The Human Genome Project has served as a model," he said.

For HIV researchers, the plan involves "being more open and more networking," Daniel Tarantola, the retiring director of vaccines and biologicals at the World Health Organization, told The Scientist.

"HIV vaccine research has been largely dominated by the US," said Tarantola. "Europe has also made tremendous strides, but the rest of the world needs to move now, including developing countries. It's very clear now that we need direct involvement of scientists from Africa and Asia, and other deeply affected countries."

Links for this article

"Fact Sheet: Global HIV vaccine enterprise," White House press release, June 10, 2004.

http://www.g8usa.gov/f_061004b.htm

Anthony S. Fauci

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/director/director.htm

"Thursday's G8 press briefing," White House press release, June 10, 2004.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040610-5.html

R. Klausner et al., "The need for a global HIV vaccine enterprise," Science, 300:2036-2039, June 27, 2003.

http://www.aidscience.org/Science/Science--Klausner_et_al_300(5 628)2036.htm



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