Gates vaccine cash

Microsoft boss Bill Gates’ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $82.9m (€54.6m) – the largest grant awarded for the development of a tuberculosis vaccine – to the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation.

Dr Richard Klausner, executive director of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health programme, said the money would pay for human trials of promising TB vaccines and finance research on advanced vaccines.

The grant was announced on the opening day of the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Seattle.