After his plan to test a cancer vaccine for middle-aged pet dogs was rejected by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), inventor and biochemist Stephen Johnston sought funding outside the mainstream system. On 20 December, the Open Philanthropy Project, a grant-giving organization that is largely funded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna, announced that Johnston will receive US$6.4 million to test the vaccine he developed. His team at Arizona State University in Tempe is now poised to enrol its first pooches in a clinical trial.
The science-funding efforts of the Open Philanthropy Project, or Open Phil, have so far flown under the radar compared with other Silicon Valley funders. But that looks set to change. The organization, which was launched in 2011 but rebranded under its current name in 2014, has significantly boosted its spending to $200 million this year, of which around $40 million was on scientific research. And Chris Somerville, a biochemist and a scientific advisor to the organization, says OpenPhil’s total spending will rise by several times over the coming years.
