Dr Peter Piot, co-discoverer of the Ebola virus and former founding head of the UN AIDS programme, has agreed to serve a brief stint as a top health adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Piot has formerly criticized the Foundation for putting too much of its health money into research projects – such as the search for a malaria vaccine – and not enough into working out how to get vaccines and new technologies to people in poor countries without functioning healthcare systems.