On May 26, 2015, Grand Challenges Explorations grants were announced for 43 researchers from around the world. Each will receive $100,000 to conduct early-stage research projects focusing on one of four global health and development&nbsp;challenges selected for this Round.

On May 26, 2015, Grand Challenges Explorations grants were announced for 43 researchers from around the world. Each will receive $100,000 to conduct early-stage research projects focusing on one of four global health and development&nbsp;challenges selected for this Round.

Grand Challenges Explorations Round 16 Highlights

Explore New Solutions in Global Health Priority Areas (Round 16)

Kirill Alexandrov of the University of Queensland in Australia will develop a low-cost diagnostic that uses well-established glucose biosensors to detect DNA of infectious pathogens.

Repurposing Glucose Monitoring Technology for DNA Detection

Global Health Solutions

Grand Challenges Explorations

Photo Galleries

Photo Gallery

Addressing Newborn and Infant Gut Health Through Bacteriophage-Mediated Microbiome Engineering (Round 16)

Martha Clokie from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom will develop a bacteriophage to destroy the diarrhea-causing bacterium Shigella, and study its effect on microbial populations in the gut.

Developing Bacteriophages to Eradicate Infant Shigella

Bacteriophage

Explore New Ways to Measure Delivery and Use of Digital Financial Services Data (Round 16)

Ralph Lin of of Groundtruth, LLC in the U.S. will develop a new approach to more accurately measure rainfall across farming regions in developing countries so that insurers can make more informed and rapid decisions for paying out to small-scale farmers with insurance against seasonal crop loss.

Multimodal Satellite Rainfall Measurement for Index Insurance

Financial Services Data

Novel Approaches to Characterizing and Tracking the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance (Round 16)

Francisco Diéguez from Disal in Chile will determine whether samples collected from portable toilets found across Pacific coastal regions in South America can be used to monitor pathogenic diseases and antibiotic resistance and help combat these major public health concerns.

Portable Toilets as a Health Surveillance Platform

Drug Resistance Burden

Peter Lillehoj of Michigan State University in the U.S. will develop a low-cost skin patch that can rapidly and safely detect malaria.

A RDT Skin Patch for Non-Invasive Malaria Detection

Bryan Hsu from Harvard Medical School in the U.S. will develop a mouse model carrying specific bacteria to mimic conditions in the infant gut for studying bacteria-infecting viruses known as phage, which could be valuable agents for treating infectious diseases and promoting child health in developing countries.

Toward Rational Remodeling of the Infant Gut Microbiota

Tyler Radford from Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in the U.S. will partner with the local tech community in Uganda to develop web- and phone-based applications that enable individuals to locate their nearest financial services such as an ATM or mobile money provider, and help financial service providers identify the best locations to expand access across developing countries.

Real-Time Financial Service Location Planning and Search

Tim Inglis from the University of Western Australia in Australia will develop a screening test that can be used in remote and low-resource settings to detect antibiotic resistance and ensure the right antibiotics can be prescribed.

From FAST To FIRST and Handy: Rapid Detection of AMR

Steve Lindsay of Durham University in the United Kingdom will develop a non-invasive test to block the reemergence of malaria in disease-free regions by training dogs to identify specific odors that are released from people carrying the malaria parasite.

Sniffing Out Malaria: Dogs to Identify People with Malaria

Diane Joseph-McCarthy of EnBiotix Inc. in the U.S. will use a systems biology approach incorporating gene, protein and metabolic data to computationally model the complex interplay between specific microbes in the gut and the host response, and the effect of phage, to enhance our understanding of pathogenic diseases and identify new treatments.

Integrated Systems Biology for Phage/Microbiome Modeling

Julia Reichelstein of EFL Global Ltd in Bermuda will promote access to financial services for poor communities by producing a psychometric test for distribution by SMS that can identify dependable new customers and evaluate the risk of lending to them.

SMS Psychometric Credit Scoring

Christopher Mason of Weill Cornell Medicine in the U.S. will generate a global map of antimicrobial resistance by using biochemical and computational methods on available samples taken monthly over one year from 24 developed and developing cities across six continents. Each city will be sampled from both high-density (e.g. train stations) and low-density (e.g. parks) areas.

Global Distribution and Epigenetic Stratification of Antimicrobial Resistance

Ian Cockburn from the Australian National University in Australia will test two approaches to improve vaccines by increasing competition for the vaccine antigen by immune cells and prolonging the survival of those immune cells.

Vaccination-Passive Transfer to Enhance Germinal Centers

Reza Nokhbeh from the Advanced Medical Research Institute of Canada in Canada will genetically engineer phage that infect pathogenic Escherichia coli bacteria to express proteins and short RNA molecules that block multiple bacterial functions and thereby stop it from colonizing the human gut and causing disease.

Reversal of Virulence of Pathogenic E. Coli

Rupert Scofield from FINCA International, Inc. in the U.S. will promote financial inclusion in the Democratic Republic of Congo by partnering with First Access and mobile network operators to build a credit-scoring model for individuals based on mobile phone usage and financial data.

Bridging Mobile and Financial Data for Agency Banking In DRC

Timothy Julian of Eawag in Switzerland will develop a low-cost approach to monitor the development of resistance to antibiotics, which is a major public health concern.