Dr. Richard Axel Offered $5 Million Grant From Grand Challenges In Global Health Initiative

Richard Axel, M.D., University Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Pathology at Columbia University Medical Center and recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, was offered a $5 million grant from the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative to build on state-of-the-art knowledge of the sense of smell in insects to develop safe, effective and low cost mosquito repellents, which may aid in reducing malaria transmission in endemic areas.

Click here for a summary of Grand Challenge projects, including Dr. Axel's research.

The Grand Challenges initiative was launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2003, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health, with a $200 million grant to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and is a major international effort to achieve scientific breakthroughs against diseases that kill millions of people each year in the world's poorest countries. It is funded with a $450 million commitment from Gates Foundation, $27.1 from the Wellcome Trust, and $4.5 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The initiative is managed by global health experts at the Foundation for NIH, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and CIHR.