By Lee Shearer
Eradicating polio from the world is a lofty goal, but University of Georgia virus researcher Ralph Tripp is willing to try – with a little help.
Working with scientists from the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the private company Thermo Fisher Scientific and other researchers at UGA, Tripp is trying to figure out a cheaper, faster way to make polio vaccine.
The researchers have gotten backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has given Tripp’s group a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant to get started, with the chance of more funding if officials at the Gates Foundation think Tripp’s ideas might work.
The Grand Challenges grant program aims to help researchers find new ways to solve global health problems like polio.
Scientists have been able to eradicate the deadly disease from most parts of the world after devastating epidemics in the early 1950s.
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