On November 15, 2016, Grand Challenges Explorations grants were announced for 56 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 November 15, 2016, Grand Challenges Explorations grants were announced for 56 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 17 Highlights

Assess Family Planning Needs, Preferences and Behaviors to Inform Innovations in Contraceptive Technologies and Services (Round 17)

Rebecca Thornton of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in the U.S. will test whether access to home pregnancy tests and thereby earlier confirmation of pregnancy status in rural areas of sub-Saharan countries encourages family planning.

Impact of Home Pregnancy Tests on Contraceptive Uptake

Family Planning

Grand Challenges Explorations

Photo Galleries

Photo Gallery

Develop Novel Platforms to Accelerate Contraceptive Drug Discovery (Round 17)

Patricia Donahoe of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will use their cell-based screening platform to develop lower cost and more effective female contraceptives to promote wider use.

Reversible Contraceptives that Block Primordial Follicles

Contraceptive Discovery

Design New Analytics Approaches for Malaria Elimination (Round 17)

Kathryn Colborn of University of Colorado Denver in the U.S. will develop a statistical model to predict future outbreaks of malaria and help identify the most effective intervention strategy.

Development of an Automated Early Warning System for Malaria

Malaria Analytics

Accelerate Development of New Therapies for Childhood Cryptosporidium Infection (Round 17)

William Witola of the University of Illinois in the U.S. will help develop new drugs for treating children infected with the protozoa Cryptosporidium by using a gene knockdown approach to evaluate candidate drug targets

Gene Knockdown System for Cryptosporidium

Cryptosporidium Infection

Novel Approaches to Characterizing and Tracking the Global Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance (Round 17)

Rebecca Stumpf of the University of Illinois in the U.S. will develop an approach that incorporates the role of many different organisms to track, model, and prevent the transmission of antimicrobial resistance in Western Uganda, where it is a major problem exacerbated by poverty and disease.

Identifying, Predicting, and Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance Transmission

Drug Resistance Burden

Explore New Solutions in Global Health Priority Areas (Round 17)

Alexander Green of Arizona State University in the U.S. will develop molecular technologies, hosted by cell-free systems embedded into paper, to create point-of-care diagnostics for multiple diseases at low-costs.

Low-Cost Nucleic Acid Diagnostics Based on Cell-Free Systems

Global Health Solutions

Elmar Stroomer of Design without Borders Uganda Ltd. in Uganda will develop an interactive game combining methods from game-based learning to collect data on decisions made around family planning in Uganda.

Using Game-Based Learning for Assessing Behaviors and Needs

Martin Matzuk, along with Nicholas Simmons of Baylor College of Medicine in the U.S. and Masahito Ikawa of Osaka University in Japan, will build a male contraceptive drug discovery platform comprising a library of two billion small compounds generated by DNA-Encoded Chemistry Technology (DEC-Tec) at relatively low cost, and a panel of male-specific fertility proteins.

A Next-Generation Pipeline to Discover Male Contraceptives

Thomas Churcher of Imperial College London in the United Kingdom will develop an analytical method to more accurately determine the origin of new cases of malaria in regions with low levels of the disease, which is critical for elimination efforts.

The Use of Routine Collected Data to Define Disease Importation and Target Intervention

Boris Striepen of the University of Georgia in the U.S. will develop a new, more natural mouse model for cryptosporidiosis, which is a leading cause of severe diarrhea in children, to help identify effective treatments.

A Physiological Mouse Model for Cryptosporidiosis

James Platts-Mills of the University of Virginia in the U.S. will quantify the effect of factors, including antibiotic use and hospitalization, in infants on the subsequent incidence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens in developing countries.

Longitudinal Assessment of Carriage of Drug-Resistant Escherichia coli

Rebecca Traub of the University of Melbourne in Australia will develop a method to preserve fresh stool so that it can be transported over longer distances to central laboratories and used to diagnose intestinal parasites and monitor the different types.

Accurate Diagnosis of Parasites in Fixed Stool

Alison Norris of Ohio State University in the U.S. will perform a prospective study to assess how individual’s contraceptive needs and identified barriers explain contraceptive use over time for developing a simple tool to prevent unintended pregnancies in Malawi.

Reconceptualizing Contraceptive Need and Barriers

Teresa Woodruff of Northwestern University in the U.S. will develop an ovulation model using cultured mouse ovarian follicles with hormones delivered by a series of microfluidic and microdynamic systems to produce a menstrual cycle over 28 days comparable to humans for high-throughput discovery of new contraceptives.

In Vitro Ovulation Microfluidic Assay Development and Validation

Yang Cheng of Jiangnan University in China will develop a smartphone application to track Chinese individuals who move to work in other countries with high levels of malaria.

A New Application Development for Malaria Elimination

Xun Suo of China Agricultural University in China will develop a rabbit model of Cryptosporidiosis that mimics the human disease, which presents as severe diarrhea particularly in young children, to help identify new treatments.

Rabbit as an Animal Model of Pediatric Cryptosporidiosis

Gautam Dantas of Washington University in the U.S. will measure the effect of the routine use of antibiotics to treat severe malnutrition or to minimize the risk of HIV infection in young children, on the bacterial populations and antimicrobial resistance genes in the gut.

Quantifying the Impacts of Antibiotic Prophylaxis on Antimicrobial Resistance

Ricky Chiu of Phase Diagnostics Inc. in the U.S. will develop a new paper-based oral diagnostic device with high accuracy that can rapidly concentrate and detect malaria biomarkers without needing any power, equipment or personnel training.