Capetown applauded; blueprint presented
March 1, 2000
Capetown applauded; blueprint presented
Goal to get bench science up, running
Preliminary reports from jet-lagged, hoarse-throated attendants back from last month’s three-day confab on new TB drug development in Capetown, South Africa, suggest that the conference may have gone better than anyone had dared to hope.
"I was amazed to see how much industry was represented," says Bill Foege, senior adviser to the Gates Foundation. "There were also a surprising number of experts outside the [TB] field." Having so much diversity meant that several non-TB experts came up with some striking and well-received ideas for the TB crowd, he adds.
Foege gives Ariel Pablos-Mendez, PhD, the scientific adviser to the Rockefeller Foundation, especially high marks for leadership skills and organizational flair. "Ariel turned out to be a very good organizer," he says. "He was able to get people to follow his lead. A lot of us left feeling that people had really signed on and that this wasn’t just another conference. I think people really bought into the big ideas that Ariel presented."
One highlight took place when Pablos-Mendez, along with a planning group assembled prior to the conference, presented a 10-year scientific blueprint for new TB drug development. Later this year, the blueprint will be published, along with a business plan and several advocacy road maps, says George Soule, director of media relations for the Rockefeller Founda tion. No date has been set for the next meeting of the Capetown partners, Soule adds.
The presentations were "dazzling," Foege says. "We left with the upbeat feeling after the meeting ended that we could be doing a lot more with the science." At the same time, the gap between potential and reality loomed large. "What was clear to me was how brilliant some of the science is right now but how the biggest proportion of TB patients don’t benefit from it at all. The gap between bench and application is still pretty striking."
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