Helene Gayle

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has recruited its second high-profile AIDS specialist in less than a year—pediatrics and preventive medicine specialist Helene Gayle. She has been lured away from her position as director of the National Center for HIV, Sexually Transmitted Disease and Tuberculosis at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Prevention (CDC), and on 1 September she will join vaccinologist Margaret Liu, who is Senior Advisor in Vaccinology, at the Foundation (Nature Med. 6, 1303, 2000). Unlike Liu, who works for Gates for 75% of the time, Gayle will be fully employed by the foundation.

Gayle's 17-year career at CDC began in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and has spanned 10 different appointments. She counts among her successes at CDC the launch of a global AIDS program to develop prevention, care and infrastructure for HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis in 14 countries in Africa and Asia.

She sees her move to the Gates Foundation as coming at the right time: “This is a unique opportunity at a unique moment in the history of the global epidemic, where an organization that has made such an extraordinary commitment to global health can really make a huge difference in the response to the global HIV epidemic.” She adds, “I think I can further enhance the very strong foundation they already have in HIV.” Gayle's role as Senior Advisor for HIV/AIDS will include “bringing more players to the table,” and promoting the battle against HIV/AIDS in both the public and private sectors.

The Gates Foundation began giving grants for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in 1998 and has committed over $340 million to the disease. Individual amounts have ranged from $20,000 to a foundation in New York to $100 million over five years which was committed to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative last January for development of a vaccine.