A meeting with Bill Gates
Amanda Collis, Interim Executive Director for Science at UK bioscience funders BBSRC, reports on meeting one of the most famous philanthropists in the world.
One of the perks of a job like mine is that every once in a while you get to meet a really, really well-known person. Bill Gates made his name in home computers, invented the PC’s Windows system and co-founded what was once the biggest company in the world.
But that’s old news. He’s now (almost) as well known for the charitable foundation he set up with his wife — The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). A significant part of the foundation’s work is via their Grand Challenges initiative that, like BBSRC, seeks to foster innovation to solve key problems around the world. Even a couple of months later, I’m still excited that I got to meet him along with my colleague BBSRC Deputy CE Steve Visscher.
The BMGF Grand Challenges conference took place in London in late October 2016. The scientific track included sessions on vaccines and life sciences innovation, drug discovery and translation, as well as focusing a global lens on antimicrobial resistance, crop research, big data, and research ecosystems that could help us meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
One of the key areas of overlapping interest for Gates and BBSRC is crop research for food security. The conference’s crop research track focused on research to increase sustainable crop productivity in developing countries, highlighting the contributions and leadership of scientists based in Africa. It included interactive sessions to connect scientists supported through multiple co-funding partnerships, including by America’s USAID, and National Science Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany, and DFID and BBSRC in the UK.
The meeting updated Bill on recent progress made by leading crop science researchers from the UK, US and Denmark on the ENSA and RIPE research programmes. ENSA is led by the John Innes Centre (JIC), which receives strategic funding from BBSRC so it can undertake long-term research, such as adding genes for nitrogen fixation to cereal plants that don’t have this natural symbiosis. Similarly, the RIPE project aims to engineer photosynthesis to develop plants that more efficiently turn the sun’s energy into food.
Bill’s commitment and enthusiasm for this ground-breaking research was clear and I was delighted to receive a follow up letter from him, stating that the BMGF is excited to partner with BBSRC to connect world-class bioscience research in the UK with the most pressing challenges faced by smallholder farmers in developing countries.
Looking ahead to the start of 2017, we will conclude the peer review of the Global Challenges Research Fund foundations call in Global Agriculture and Food Systems and progress workshops on international development challenges, including a grant-holders event in Tanzania for the joint research initiative on Zoonoses and Emerging Livestock Systems.
Read more Policy Briefs from UK science funders BBSRC here.
