Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to donate $50 million to Stanford University research unit

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is donating $50 million to a Stanford University research unit which will work to produce vaccines that make the most out of the human body's natural disease-fighting abilities.

According to a statement released today by the university, the $50 million grant over 10 years will go toward establishing the Stanford Human Systems Immunology Center on the school's California campus

"What we need is a new generation of vaccines and new approaches to vaccination," said Mark Davis, a professor at Stanford's School of Medicine, who will lead the new center.

"This will require a better understanding of the human immune response and clearer predictions about vaccine efficacy for particular diseases," he said in the statement.

Professor of Microbiology and Immunology Mark Davis says his research team will use the funding to learn more about the immune system and the best ways for vaccines to harness the body's arm for fighting off viruses and other invaders.

Diseases like HIV and Ebola, both of which are caused by viruses, have stumped medical researchers for years.

Davis says that a new generation of vaccines may hold promise for solving these problems.

The center will focus research on how the immune system can be harnessed to develop vaccines for the world's most deadly infectious diseases, the university said in the statement.

"While illnesses like polio and measles are now readily preventable, scientists have been stymied in their efforts to fight diseases such as HIV and malaria," according to the statement.

The Gates Foundation was set up by Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, and wife Melinda to fight disease and poverty around the world.