I am a professor of health sciences at McMaster University and a Senior Scientist at Stanford. I have spent my career working on infectious diseases in poor countries. It is in that capacity that I met Sam Bankman-Fried. I know nothing about crypto or the business side of FTX, but I got to know Sam somewhat well through our collaboration on pandemic preparedness and the Sam I know bears no resemblance to the villain portrayed by the media. In fact, he is about as far from it as anyone I have ever known.
I first met Sam when he asked me to help him organize a week-long planning meeting on pandemic preparedness in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, and Sam was at the time living. The meeting, which was held in March 2022, drew together top academic researchers from Stanford, Johns Hopkins, McMaster, Georgetown, and Harvard, as well as representation from WHO. Subsequently, Sam would provide over $150 million to fund an eco-system of researchers across the world working to speed the development of multiple vaccines, therapeutics, and monitoring strategies. The intent of the funding was that the groups work together, share knowledge, and (where possible) make all of data available on an open-source basis. At a meeting in May 2023 in Bellagio, Italy, hosted by the White House and 10 Downing St., and focused on pandemic preparedness, about half of the scientists in attendance had received their initial research funding from Sam. Funding he provided for long COVID has now been the genesis of the largest long COVID trial in the world, still ongoing.
His interest in medical solutions was extraordinary, but so was his vision and the depth of his moral commitment to realizing it. Sam’s short-term focus was on pandemics, which pose the gravest immediate threat to the world’s population. But his larger aspiration was to move towards “a world without disease.” He was not naïve. He understood both the technological and regulatory challenges of developing medical agents and distributing them to the world population at an affordable cost, but also knew there were promising paths forward that we hadn’t thought of or hadn’t tried yet because we lacked the funding.
He encouraged all of us at the initial meeting to prioritize strategies for tackling infectious diseases that disproportionately kill the world’s poor. But that was the start, not the end, of his vision. He said to all of us, “our job is not over until we are successfully conducting pediatric cancer trials in the poorest parts of Africa.” He was aware that what the world saw as unachievable, was within grasp.
Sam’s vision of an eco-system of similarly intentioned scientists working together towards a world without disease continues to be badly needed. In the absence of Sam Bankman Fried, it will be a very long time before we make important progress towards that goal. It boggles my mind as to why so few of the biggest philanthropists are focusing on targeting the most impactful issues facing the world. I hope someone can fill this important void, but no one has stepped up yet since the collapse of FTX. It is easy to cast judgement based on allegations, but actions speak louder than words. I know Sam feels that same way — it was never about his personal notoriety; it was simply about doing good for the world.