“…Today’s announcement of two multi-year partnerships involving the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — with the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) and with the University of Cape Town — is further proof of the ambitious research agenda staked out by local scientists. This alliance, led by South African scientists and co-funded by the South African government, will focus on some of the most important research needed to tackle the continent’s biggest health challenges,” Trevor Mundel, president of global health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes in the foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog (1/22).