Domains
The Accelerator’s domains are constantly evolving as novel technologies emerge with the potential to effect positive change in global health outcomes at scale.
HIV Frontiers
Current HIV therapies remain complex, costly, and require lifelong adherence from people living with HIV. Sickle cell disease (SCD) therapy is likewise challenging and curative gene therapy treatments are highly invasive and prohibitively expensive. This Frontier aims to develop safe, effective, affordable, accessible, and acceptable “single-shot” curative treatments for HIV and SCD using emerging cell and gene therapy technologies to target long-lived cells in vivo. Additional HIV-focused efforts include reducing and controlling the latent reservoir, as well as discovering and validating circulating nonviral biomarkers to predict reservoir rebound. For further details, see this PDF overview of HIV Frontiers.
Subdomains
AI Enabled Cures Frontier
Despite major technological advances, the average drug today requires 7-10 years of iteration and $500M-$1B of investment before it is approved. Even then, 90% still don’t reach approval due to a variety of technical failures. Advances in AI promise to provide revolutionary breakthroughs in chemistry, biology, drug discovery, and medicine. To truly revolutionize drug discovery in a way that shortens timelines, improves safety, and reduces costs, algorithms must be trained on high-quality, highly-curated, multimodal datasets. This has the potential to capture a complete view of the full complexity of human biology. This Frontier aims to enable the full integration of the most advanced AI tools with these datasets to transform drug discovery and development, focusing on diseases with unmet needs worldwide.
Subdomains
Beyond Human Perception
It is rare to seek medical assistance without symptoms, but disease can spread silently. Even if symptomatic, more than half the world’s population does not have access to clinical diagnostics and care. As a result, by the time disease is diagnosed in a clinical setting, it is much harder to disrupt. This domain aims to advance the fundamental science behind how to non-invasively detect biomarkers and apply it to develop novel devices that are low-cost, accessible, non-invasive, and deployable for the rapid diagnosis of asymptomatic and symptomatic disease.
Subdomains
Novel Drug and Vaccine Modalities
Without a way to precisely tune a vaccine or drug to an individual’s response, repeated doses of therapeutics are required for treatment, and vaccine boosters are needed to create long-lasting immunity. The more frequently a vaccine or therapy needs to be administered to be effective, the less likely consistent access and therefore successful treatment and disruption are possible. Once infectious disease is detected, quarantine is the only effective way to block transmission between individuals, which carries stigma and is logistically complicated. This domain aims to develop new drug and vaccine platforms that can lead to robust, long-lasting, broad immunity, and new approaches to therapeutic cures.
Subdomains
Scalable Innovations in Biomanufacturing: Food and Drugs
Approximately 30% of the global population is considered food insecure (over 2B people). With arable land decreasing and global population predicted to reach more than 10B by 2100, innovative solutions are needed. Biotech medicines have transformed patient treatment but remain too expensive in much of the world. This domain aims to prove extreme volume biofermentation manufacturing can produce nutritious foods independent of arable land and affordable, easily administered, locally-produced drugs.