One of the richest guys on the planet is offering you a chance to come up with an original, unproven innovation in the health field to combat HIV, tuberculosis, infectious diseases, and drug resistance. Of course, you'll need to be a scientist with your own lab, but the restrictions stop there for the most part.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wants to make this a very open request for proposals to get funding for innovative approaches to global health care. They're going to give away $100,000 to about five dozen groups to pursue their proposals for innovation.

This could be a big step in the field for these four target areas of study. Even though they're not offering opportunities to tackle their other areas (education, for example) the other health issues could use any the help they can get. I bet we're going to see a lot of universities submitting 2-page proposals for a shot at getting past the first round. Who knows, HIV patients may end up thanking the founder of Microsoft in the not-too-distant!

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In the worldwide quest to begin the eradication of health and disease issues in some of the poorest countries on earth, the Gates Foundation -- headed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda -- planted a tall order on scientists this week.

Both leaders of the Gates Foundation urged scientists to try and eradicate malaria from the face of the planet instead of trying to find ways of controlling the spread of the disease. Trying to completely get rid of anything biological on a planetary scale is hard to do, but that is what's being urged. Is it even possible?

Melinda Gates did say that it was "a long-term goal; it won't come soon,", noting that it would take quite a while for complete elimination to occur. But, she added that "to aspire to anything less is just far too timid a goal for the age we're in." Based on the resources the Gates Foundation has, she may be right.

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When Warren Buffet recently endowed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with $31 billion, it cemented that foundation as the largest in the history of the planet. The Gates Foundation had already impacted scores of people and countries with its philanthropic efforts, and it went into overdrive with the gift from Buffett.

Has the Gates Foundation changed the pharmaceutical landscape? According to some, it has -- and deeply. It's good to see the global pharmaceutical players having a danger posed to them.

Hey, it's what keeps companies inline when a disruptor changes the rules, right? Perhaps more collaboration between the largest philanthropy in the world and major pharma companies would be a nice middle ground.

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I am a large admirer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The world's richest man -- whose company's software is allowing me to type this -- has given away billions to fight certain diseases and help global health on a scale that's hard to comprehend, let alone measure.

On that vein, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation just today pledged $83.5 million to fight malaria on a global scale. The pledge will provide for better controls, vaccine research and prevention of a the disease malaria -- which kills more than a million people a year.

The Foundation -- which is the world's largest charity -- has given $765 million to fight malaria since its founding. Malaria, when looked at from a killer scale, results in the death of someone in the world every 30 seconds. Melinda Gates -- wife of Bill and co-chair of the Foundation itself -- said "The continuing toll of malaria is a moral outrage -- we would not allow it in the U.S., and we should not allow it anywhere."

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