With their $25 million gift to benefit AIDS vaccine research, Bill and Melinda Gates have set a new level for giving to that cause. The gift to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative marks the largest-ever private donation for AIDS research, according to the organization.

The five-year grant from the William H. Gates Foundation will provide funding for the initiative to begin work on up to three new vaccines between now and 2001 that would be affordable in developing countries, where the epidemic has taken its worst toll. Last June, the Gates foundation made an initial $1.5 million commitment to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

Through its Vaccine Development Partnerships, the initiative links scientists in industrialized and developing countries with private industry to develop and test vaccine candidates as quickly as possible.

Acting as a "social venture capitalist," the initiative secures intellectual property agreements to ensure that the vaccines it funds are available in developing countries at a reasonable price, the organization says. Under the program, the initiative now has projects under way at Oxford University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, founded in 1996, also received $2 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, making that foundation's total commitment to AIDS vaccines $5 million so far.

The William H. Gates Foundation was established in 1994 to fund advances in global health and education. In December 1998, the foundation established the Bill and Melinda Gates Children's Vaccine Program, a $100 million effort to speed the delivery of new and existing vaccines to children in the poorest countries.

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