Friday, October 17, 2008

X Prize Foundation Targets Tuberculosis, Gets Gates Grant

The X Prize Foundation announced Thursday that it has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a prize focused on the effective diagnosis of tuberculosis in the developing world. Amount of the grant was not disclosed. The foundation said the new prize would go to promote ways to promote better management of tuberculosis, which the group said is the world's second most lethal infectious disease. The new award is the second launched by the nonprofit this week; earlier this week it announced a new prize focused on improving the nation's health system. The X Prize Foundation was behind the Ansari X Prize, the contest which resulted in the first commercial suborbital spaceflight.

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