One of the richest men in the world, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has devoted himself to philanthropic work. He is passionate about combating health inequities and diseases of poverty in developing countries, targeting AIDS, polio and malaria among others.
Arguably Harvard’s most famous dropout, Gates was in Boston Thursday to speak at the American Society of Microbiology’s annual scientific conference, Microbe. Before that event, Gates met with STAT executive editor Rick Berke and reporter Helen Branswell. The following is a condensed version of the conversation.
We heard that you met with some scientists here to have some one-on-ones. We’re curious about your personal interest in science.
It’s a very fun part of my job. Last week, I met with people from the Wyss Institute and Synlogic. Today I met with Editas. I went to Intarcia, which is actually doing a diabetes thing that they have a delivery system that’s super interesting to us for some of our diseases. I’m over at the Broad [Institute] a lot. And, you know, biology is moving at high speed, fortunately for Boston. It’s moving at a slightly higher speed here than anywhere else. It’s incredible to see places like the Broad, the Wyss, and then all the companies that are here doing great work.
When you meet with these companies, do you ask them specific questions?
I read a lot of papers in advance. So take Editas as an example — Feng Zhang, David Liu. They’re there and they’re talking about the latest in CRISPR. They have some new endonucleases. We’re taking the diseases they’ve decided to target and understanding how they see the regulatory pathway.
It’s really nice that I get to meet with a lot of those top companies. Some of those people we’re doing grants with, some people we’re not. We’re just trying to understand the latest in the technology.
One thing that we hear a lot about is billionaires spending money to cure cancer. Is there almost too much money going to cancer and not enough to other health issues?
Well, philanthropy, the beauty of it is its diversity. People get to give to things that they’re passionate about. If people want to give to cancer, if that’s the thing they’ve seen an effect on, there are effective ways to do it.
Government research in the case of cancer — that’s the big number. I think NCI [the National Cancer Institute] is up at a little over $6 billion a year. But that doesn’t mean that somebody who is funding younger investigators or more unusual approaches — sometimes that really makes a huge difference.
What do you think of Vice President Biden’s “moonshot’’?
Anything that gets us more money for medical research is a good thing. I don’t know about that construct specifically. There’s always a tendency in the slogans we use in health to potentially overpromise.
We had the war on cancer, you know cancer has won several rounds of that war.
It is a very, very exciting time in cancer — whether it’s immunotherapy, antibodies, basic molecular understandings.
You paused and almost rolled your eyes when I mentioned the “moonshot.’’ Do you think that that’s oversold?
The idea of getting people excited about the progress that is being made and can be made is a great thing. I’m always a little cautious about telling people what will necessarily come out of these things because the patience required is very, very high.
I think if you take a 20-year time frame, we will see some very, very dramatic reduction. And most diseases, including the infectious diseases that we focus on, there’s a lot to be optimistic about.
We also want to talk a little about Zika. The CDC said today that they’ve already recorded six pregnancies in the United States in which Zika birth defects were seen. What do you think the US ought to be doing differently?
We’re going to get surprises about diseases. Although in general, I think global health should be more funded and emergency preparation should be more funded. Even if the thing was funded at some higher level that I might pick, the risk of some new pathogen showing up — you’re never going to be completely immune to this. This one is particularly surprising because it’s actually a pathogen seen ages ago, and it wasn’t believed to be pathogenic.
You’re so passionate on these issues of public health, how would you compare a President Clinton and President Trump on these issues?
We have had a great relationship with all administrations so far. The Bush administration initiated PEPFAR [President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief], which is a miraculous, amazing program that has had bipartisan support. The Bush administration started the President’s Malaria Initiative — they picked a great leader, it’s been a huge thing, it’s perhaps why many fewer children die from malaria [than] in the past.
The Obama administration has also been fantastic to work with because they cared a lot about global health. They haven’t been able to push the budget up as much. But these are tight budget times. I do think the way the US government stepped in on Ebola was extremely beneficial to the world.
We approach any new administration with a positive, open mind.
You’ve worked closely with the Clinton Foundation. Are you confident Trump understands these issues?
There have been questions about vaccines in general where some of the candidates have shown that they’re not as up to date about vaccines in general, and that’s got to be a concern. Science in general, whether it’s GMOs or vaccines, there’s a lot of people out there who don’t give science the benefit of the doubt.
In terms of experience, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have more experience on global health.
These causes are so important there’s nothing that causes you to change your total commitment. Polio, HIV, malaria, we’re going to work with whoever’s elected.
