MIT wraps up Dublin lab following funding failure

NATURE | VOL 433 | 27 JANUARY 2005 | www.nature.com/nature 345

Roxanne Khamsi,LondonMedia Lab Europe, the European arm ofthe world-famous Media Lab at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) in Cambridge, is to close next week,less than five years after it opened.

The research lab, based in Dublin, waslaunched in 2000 during the dotcom bubble.It was a joint venture between MIT and theIrish government, which invested €35 million(US$46 million) in the centre. The originalplan was that corporate sponsors wouldsupplement the cost of running the lab,which has some 60 staff, including around40 scientists. But in 2003 the lab spent morethan €8 million and raised only €2.6 million.Overall, it managed to hook just eightpartners. “It was difficult to attract the

corporate funding we had hoped for,” saysSorcha Duggan, a spokeswoman for the lab.In 2004, the lab asked the government tofund its next three years with a €9-milliongrant, but the request was refused.

The stock-market bubble burst in 2000,slashing the share value of potential

sponsors. Observers also argue that the lab’sresearch, which included projects on “thefuture of human relationships as mediated bytechnology”, was too abstract to attractinvestment, especially in Europe, which hasless of a culture of corporate sponsorshipthan the United States.

“It’s a bit of a blow,” says Seán Duke,editor of Technology Ireland. He points outthat Ireland has taken pride in its ability toattract foreign high-tech investment.

MIT pulled out of its Media Lab Asia inNew Delhi in 2003. This followed a row withthe Indian government, which wanted thefuturistic centre to focus on more practicalgoals (see Nature 423, 213; 2003). The latestclosure leaves Media Lab with no links tospin-offs outside the United States. ■

Global vaccine project gets a shot in the arm

MIT wraps up Dublin lab following funding failure

news

out that GAVI programmes have preventedthe deaths of 670,000 children born between2001 and 2003 in 71 countries.

“We boosted routine immunization cov-erage for diphtheria, tetanus and whoopingcough from 53% in 2000 to 81% in 2003,”said Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda,in a statement. “And because GAVI has aunique incentive system,our funding actual-ly increased when we reached our immu-nization targets.”

As well as delivering vaccines, the largesums involved are indirectly encouragingmore vaccine research, says Julian Lob-Levyt,

executive secretary of GAVI. “Assurance ofmarkets over the long-term encouragesindustry to invest greater resources inresearch and development for urgentlyneeded vaccines, such as those for malaria.”

But much remains to be done. In 2002,1.4 million children under five years of agedied from vaccine-preventable diseases. In2003, more than 27 million children wentwithout vaccinations in their first year of life.Attacking this problem is key to reducingchild mortality — one of the UN MillenniumDevelopment Goals,a series of commitmentssigned by all UN members in 2000. The tar-get is to reduce the under-five mortality rateby two-thirds between 1990 and 2015, but sofar the world looks as if it will need an extratwo decades to achieve this.

Global health is on the agenda at theannual meeting of the World EconomicForum being held this week in Davos,Switzerland. Gates will take his place on apanel with Tony Blair, the UK prime minister,and the outspoken rock star Bono. Blair’sgovernment is pushing for an InternationalFinance Facility that would raise $50 billion ayear in development aid between now and2015: the facility would sell bonds on capitalmarkets that would be recovered by donorfunds pledged over several decades. Gatessays he is very excited about this approach.

“Modest amounts of resources can savelarge numbers of lives,”says Gates, regrettingthat making global health an internationalspending priority is “very,very difficult”.

“When people see tsunami victims on theTV,they do want to reach out; they do want toprovide resources and help,” he adds.“We allneed to think creatively about how we can tapinto the human compassion that’s there.” ■

Erika Check,WashingtonTwo donors this week gave US$1 billion to aproject that immunizes children in theworld’s poorest countries against preventablediseases such as hepatitis B and yellow fever.

On 24 January, the Seattle-based Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation and the Nor-wegian government announced ten-yeargrants of $750 million and $290 million,respectively, to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

That is a big sum, but, to put it in context,a further $8–10 billion will be needed overthe next ten years just to get existing vaccinesout to the children who need them, accord-ing to the World Health Organization(WHO). And that is before counting theextra costs of delivering new vaccines, suchas shots against rotavirus and pneumococ-cus,as these come on to the market.

The sum of $10 billion is not much morethan the international community haspledged to tsunami relief in three weeks.However, “the tsunami was a very visibledemonstration of need in developing coun-tries”, says David Fleming, director of globalhealth strategies for the Gates foundation.“The issue with immunization is that millionsof children are dying needlessly, but becausedeaths do not occur in a single disaster, it isharder to attract the attention of donors.”

Geneva-based GAVI, whose partnersinclude the United Nations’ children’s fund,the WHO, governments and commercialvaccine-makers, was created in 1999 with$750 million of Gates funding, and otherdonors have since brought its total fundingto $1.3 billion. “We think this is the bestinvestment we’ve ever made,” said Bill Gatesin a teleconference with reporters, pointing

Booster shot: billions of dollars are still neededto get jabs to children in poorer countries.

Media Lab Europe is closing its doors.

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