[QuantumLeap]

By JOHN MINER, SUN MEDIA

The University of Western Ontario has been asked to bid to build an $88-million AIDS vaccine manufacturing plant that would be a Canadian first.

Paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the federal government, the facility would supply vaccine for clinical trials.

Bill Gates, founder of software giant Microsoft, is one of the world's richest men.

Ted Hewitt, vice president of research at the University of Western Ontario, said London is one of only four centres asked to submit full proposals and is the only one in Ontario.

Hewitt said he did not know the identity of the other three centres. For the facility, $28 million will come from the Gates foundation and the rest from Ottawa.


"This premiere facility would place this city and this region at the forefront of vaccine development and manufacturing in the 21st century," Hewitt said.

The news of London's bid came at the same news conference where it was announced a vaccine developed by Dr. Chil-Yong Kang at Western is now being manufactured in the United States for testing on humans.

Kang said if the vaccine manufacturing facility had already been built in Canada, he would have been able to start testing months earlier.

Western has until March 25, 2009 to submit its bid.

Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best said the AIDS announcements are of global importance.

"We are making history in a way that is going to change the face of mankind," she said, noting the announcement was covered by media networks from Korea.