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A Local Fight for Global Health Gifts from Technology Billionaires Have Equipped One US State for a Frontline Battle Against Some of the World’S Deadliest Diseases

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A Local Fight for Global Health Gifts from Technology Billionaires Have Equipped One US State for a Frontline Battle Against Some of the World’S Deadliest Diseases SPOTLIGHT ON WASHINGTON CAREERS A local fight for global health Gifts from technology billionaires have equipped one US state for a frontline battle against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. BY PAUL SMAGLIK he US state of Washington, in the Pacific all aspects of the sector. “In Washington state, particularly attractive to those involved in this Northwest, was once the epicentre of we have organizations that do everything from sort of work. “The Seattle area is the Silicon the information-technology world, lab-based research, vaccines, diagnostics, data Valley of saving the world,” he says. Tthanks to Microsoft and its founder, Seattle- collection, service delivery, disaster response, In 2000, Gates established the Bill & Melinda born Bill Gates — until the dotcom boom sent down to last-mile logistics,” says Dena Mor- Gates Foundation in Seattle, which has been investors down the coast to Silicon Valley. ris, president and chief executive of WGHA. the most significant contributor to the state’s Now, Gates and other high-profile Microsoft “Everything from beginning to end, there’s global-health efforts. It has launched and alumni, along with other wealthy donors, are someone in the state working on it.” funded several institutes and departments, both elevating the state as a major player in another Nathan Myhrvold was at Microsoft from at the University of Washington, in Seattle, and sector: global health. 1986 to 2000, becoming the company’s at Washington State University, in Pullman — One survey, from the Washington Global chief technology officer in 1996. In 2000, he the state’s two largest higher education centres Health Alliance (WGHA), an industry body started the speculative patent firm Intellectual — as well as funding global health organiza- that encourages collaboration between global- Ventures, based in Bellevue; this now has its tions based in the area. health organizations in the state, revealed that own global-health branch, Global Good, In 2015, the foundation made US$4.1 billion 207 local bodies see some of their activities which was set up with funding from Gates in grants available globally. It estimates that, as pertaining to global health. Those groups in 2012. Myhrvold says that the state has a in the same year, it generated $1.5 billion ILLUSTRATION BY MARCIN WOLSKI BY ILLUSTRATION provide a diverse array of job opportunities in range of specialist enterprises that make it in local economic activity, including ©2019 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. 17 JANUARY 2019 | VOL 565 | NATURE | S1 CAREERS SPOTLIGHT ON WASHINGTON some $340 million in direct grants to the region. Most famously, he launched the the University of Washington. Wertheimer Washington-based research groups. Much Seattle-based Allen Institute, which is organ- says that the university was a natural home for of that money goes to the Seattle-based non- ized into separate institutes specializing in brain the institute. Like PATH, which celebrated its profit organization Program for Appropriate science, cell science and artificial intelligence, 40th anniversary in 2017, the university was Technology in Health (PATH) and the Univer- along with a grant-awarding body. Rob Piercy, a addressing global-health issues “long before sity of Washington — both with a history of spokesperson for the Allen Institute, told Nature the Gates Foundation ever existed”, he says. studying and fighting infectious diseases. that Allen had committed more than $1 billion The institute collects global data on diseases, The Gates Foundation, which employs since founding the first institute in 2003. mortality, morbidity and disability, which aids 1,200 people in Washington in a $500-million, the Gates Foundation in planning its mission, 84,000-square-metre campus next to the city’s Wertheimer says. “It will really help us allocate iconic Space Needle observation tower, is time, talent and resources to the challenges the world’s largest philanthropic funder of “THE SEATTLE of global health.” William Heisel, director scientific research in terms of endowment. of global services at the IHME, says that the It employs a further 300 people outside AREA IS THE increased support of the Gates Foundation has Washington. SILICON helped the institute to grow from three people The hugeness of the foundation has gener- when it started to about 450 now. ated criticism. Gates himself has asked why VALLEY OF sharing wealth should be optional for billion- SEEDS OF COLLABORATION aires, rather than mandated by government, SAVING THE What’s made the area so successful is how through taxes or grants. Others have pointed all these entities interact, he says. The IHME to surveys showing that an increase in private WORLD.” shares its data with local and regional organiza- grants for public health can remove incen- tions, and the Gates Foundation brings together tives for local governments to invest their a range of stakeholders; it has held more than own resources in health care, precipitating an Warren Buffett is credited with much of the 8,000 meetings since 2006, ranging from one- over-reliance on foreign aid. Still more have growth of the Gates Foundation. The business- on-ones to conferences of hundreds. “It’s a very argued that the Gates approach to funding man pledged $30 billion in 2006 — what Bill collaborative community here,” says Heisel. institutes over individuals has encouraged and Melinda Gates in their 2017 annual open Public-health specialist Dorothy Thomas the global-health sector to behave more like letter called “the single biggest gift anyone has says she sees and benefits from that com- a capitalist group than a charitable one, and ever given anyone for anything”. That gift dou- munity spirit. Thomas manages logistics at have suggested that the foundation be overseen bled the foundation’s resources. the non-profit organization VillageReach in by an independent international body, such as As the Gates Foundation grew, and started Seattle, which aims to provide remote com- the Paris-based Organisation for Economic to tackle more diseases in more countries, munities in the developing world with health Co-operation and Development. it needed better data to track and respond to care, and is building a database to track the outbreaks, says David Wertheimer, director of price of delivering vaccine components to dif- THE SINGLE BIGGEST GIFT community and civic engagement at the foun- ferent parts of the world. She is working with The Gateses aren’t the only big philanthropists dation. To this end, it launched the Institute scientists at the Gates Foundation, PATH and in town, nor is philanthropy limited to global for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in the University of Washington, among others, health. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who 2007 with a $107-million grant, and has con- to build a map of their costs. She’s been pleased died last October, was another big spender in tinued to support the centre, which is part of with the spirit of cooperation for that project. “There’s an openness, an excitement when it comes to sharing the work that they’ve been doing,” Thomas says. Another characteristic of institutes in Washington is a focus on open-access pub- lishing. The Allen institutes have remained committed to open-access research since they were founded, says Piercy. “No login, no password, no anything required to access the research,” he says. “It’s really the single biggest thing that sets us apart from other basic- science research institutes.” The Gates Foundation also maintains strict open-access policies for the research it funds. Work paid for by the foundation must be pub- lished without an embargo, and in front of a paywall, in any journal that’s willing to make the research accessible. This approach has been taken a step further by an international consortium of European research funders, which plans to forbid publishing in any- thing other than fully open-access journals. The initiative is being led Robert-Jan Smits, the European Commission’s special envoy on open access, who cited the Gates Foundation as an inspiration. Washington’s combination of open data Health workers give Bill Gates a tour of their work in the village of Kicheba, Tanzania, in 2017. and open doors makes it easy to collaborate TORGOVNIK/GETTY JONATHAN S2 | NATURE | VOL 565 | 17 JANUARY 2019 ©2019 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. ©2019 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved. SPOTLIGHT ON WASHINGTON CAREERS PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE A commute that doesn’t pollute Clay Reid enjoys a quintessentially Seattle driving, because new offices for Facebook commute. He takes his kayak down a hill and Amazon are bringing more traffic into Are you looking for a few hundred metres from his house, the South Lake Union area — a problem launches it into Lake Union, paddles that will only increase when Google expands a non-traditional 2.5 kilometres, and parks it in a garage at its own campus there. science career? the Allen Institute for Brain Science. The Demand for housing has pushed 30-minute journey illustrates the difference property prices to record highs, with between cultures in Seattle, Washington, median home prices in the Seattle area and Boston, Massachusetts, Reid says — hitting US $830,000 last spring. When Reid he worked as a neurobiologist at Harvard was looking for a house, he found himself Find jobs in these areas Medical School in Boston before joining the competing against local tech millionaires Allen institute in 2012. offering above the asking price and paying on Naturejobs: “You’re much more likely to discuss in cash. He and his wife settled for a smaller how you got to work than what you do at dwelling and later extended the property. • Science work,” Reid says.
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