MENLO PARK, Calif. – May 6, 2008 —SRI International announced today that it has received a US$100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant will support an innovative global health research project conducted by Krishna Kodukula, Ph.D., executive director of SRI International's Center for Advanced Drug Research (CADRE) in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia and Amit Galande, Ph.D., associate director of Proteomics and Protein Biochemistry at CADRE, titled "Combating Antibiotic Resistance in Tuberculosis."
SRI's project is one of 81 grants announced by the Gates Foundation in the second funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to help scientists around the world explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries. The grants were provided to scientists in 17 countries on six continents, selected from more than 3,000 proposals received by the Foundation in this highly competitive round of funding.
To receive funding, Kodukula and Galande showed in a two-page application how their idea falls outside current scientific paradigms and might lead to significant advances in global health. SRI's research project will address the problem of antibiotic resistance and the need for broad-spectrum antibiotics. Resistant strains of tuberculosis will initially be screened. Based on those results, the project will be expanded to include other pathogenic bacteria that can lead to the development of the next generation of antibiotics.
Since proteins that are antibiotic targets are prone to mutations that can result in antibiotic resistance, researchers will target non-protein components of cells. Small organic molecule metabolites that are essential for the growth and survival of pathogenic bacteria will be used as targets for antibiotic discovery.
"Antibiotic resistance is a serious public health problem around the world," said Dr. Kodukula. "It can change the course of infections that are treatable and lead to diseases that are difficult to cure. Drug resistant strains of tuberculosis pose a grave threat to global health because treatment options are becoming severely limited."
"The winners of these grants are doing truly exciting and innovative work," said Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation's Global Health Program. "I'm optimistic that some of these exploratory projects will lead to life-saving breakthroughs for people in the world's poorest countries."
About Grand Challenges Explorations
Grand Challenges Explorations is a five-year, $100 million initiative of the Gates Foundation to promote innovation in global health. The program uses an agile, streamlined grant process – applications are limited to two pages, and preliminary data are not required. Proposals are reviewed and selected by a committee of foundation staff and external experts, and grant decisions are made within approximately three months of the close of the funding round.
Applications for the next round of Grand Challenges Explorations are being accepted through May 28, 2009. Grant application instructions, including the list of topic areas in which proposals are currently being accepted, are available at the Grand Challenges Explorations website.
About SRI's Biosciences Division
SRI International's Biosciences Division teams with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academia, foundations, and government agencies to solve important problems in global health. SRI Biosciences conducts basic research, drug discovery, and drug development, including contract research. SRI has all of the resources necessary to take R&D programs from "idea to IND"™—from initial discovery to investigational new drug applications to start human clinical trials—and specializes in cancer, immunology and inflammation, infectious disease, and neuroscience research. To date, SRI has helped advance more than 100 drugs into clinical trials, including a number of its own discoveries, several of which have reached the market. SRI is also working at the nexus of science and technology to create new technology platforms for the next generation of drug discovery and development in areas such as diagnostics, drug delivery, medical devices, and systems biology.
About SRI International
Silicon Valley-based SRI International is one of the world's leading independent research and technology development organizations. SRI, which was founded by Stanford University as Stanford Research Institute in 1946 and became independent in 1970, has been meeting the strategic needs of clients and partners for more than 60 years. Perhaps best known for its invention of the computer mouse and interactive computing, SRI has also been responsible for major advances in networking and communications, robotics, drug discovery and development, advanced materials, atmospheric research, education research, economic development, national security, and more. The nonprofit institute performs sponsored research and development for government agencies, businesses, and foundations. SRI also licenses its technologies, forms strategic alliances, and creates spin-off companies. In 2008, SRI's consolidated revenues, including its wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, Sarnoff Corporation, were approximately $490 million.