Pediatric AIDS Foundation Wins Gates Grant

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, in Washington, is set to become the beneficiary of a $9.7-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, to study ways to prevent HIV/AIDS from being transmitted to children via breast milk, the Associated Press reports.

The money will pay for eight research studies and up to three clinical trials of vaccines that have previously been tested on adults.

Pamela Barnes, the head of the Glaser Foundation, said that even though nearly 14 percent of all new HIV infections are in children who contracted the disease from their mothers, there has been very little HIV-vaccine research done on children.

The grant significantly expands the foundation’s reach, accounting for almost as much money as the Glaser Foundation’s total spending on HIV/AIDS research between 1988 and 2007.

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