Institute For The Future

Bill Gates demands knowledge sharing

via David Bollier's On the Commons,

 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced that HIV/AIDS researchers who are awarded grants from must agree to share their findings and compare results with other researchers.

The Gate Foundation was apparently frustrated that two decades of secrecy and competition among AIDS researchers have impeded efforts to come up with an AIDS vaccine. Scientists often decline to share their research because they are trying to obtain patents, withhold data until it is published, or simply protect their institutional turf.

 

According to a Wall Street Journal article, "Foundation officials said this week researchers would still be free to commercialize their discoveries, but they must develop access plans for people in the developing world."

 

The article points out that two important AIDS researchers will not apply for grants because they already have sufficient funding and cannot necessary afford to break away from their existing partnerships. Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of the AIDS virus and director of the Institute for Human Virology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, might apply for funding in the future but was quoted as saying, "We had linkages that caused us to think we weren't ready to go in." Emilio Emini, vice president of vaccine research and development at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, also will not apply for a Gates Foundation grant.

 

The article does not mention if Bill finds the situation the slightest bit ironic.