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| New Diagnostics Initiative Launched for TB, other infectious diseases |
| 5/22/2003 |
The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) welcomes the creation of a new research effort, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) to develop better diagnostic tests for infectious diseases, with an initial emphasis on tuberculosis.
"We are delighted to welcome this new diagnostics initiative," said Dr. Maria C. Freire, CEO of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development. "Together we can reinvigorate the development of new tools for tuberculosis. As diagnostics and drugs go hand-in-hand, TB control efforts will get a real boost."
FIND, a non-profit research foundation, was launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), a TB Alliance Stakeholder. Moving on from his role as Director for Strategic Development at the TB Alliance, Dr. Giorgio Roscigno becomes the new Executive Director of FIND. The TB Alliance congratulates Dr. Roscigno on his new position at FIND, and looks forward to extending its past collaboration with Giorgio into a new institutional partnership.
FIND aims to develop new, affordable diagnostics for TB that draws on the biotechnology advances of the last 20 years. TB is still diagnosed with century-old technology, by examining a patient's sputum under a microscope. Much of the scientific analysis for drug development already spearheaded by the TB Alliance, including the Scientific Blueprint, can be brought to bear on diagnostic development. Dr. Mark Perkins, renowned expert in TB diagnostics and a close friend of the TB Alliance, becomes FIND's Scientific Director.
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