The Gates Foundation is part of the Grand Challenges partnership network. Visit <a href="https://www.grandchallenges.org" target="_blank">www.grandchallenges.org</a> to view the map of awarded grants across this network and grant opportunities from partners.

The Gates Foundation announced grants under the Grand Challenges Initiative. The grants - spread across six Challenges. - were awarded to 66 primary investigators in more than 22 different countries.

Grand Challenges Initiatives Highlights - December 2025

2025 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action

Brandon DeKosky of the Massachusetts General Hospital, with Carole Long of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, both in the U.S., will develop a high-throughput, microfluidic screening platform to identify antibodies active against blood-stage malaria parasites.

High-Throughput Growth Inhibition Assays for Antimalarial Protein Drugs

Grand Challenges

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Innovative Data and Modeling Approaches to Measure Women's Health

Lilian Okeke of the African Field Epidemiology Network in Uganda will develop a health index as a comprehensive, integrated measure of women's health in Nigeria.

Leveraging the Women's Health Equity Index (WHEI) to Transform Women's Health Measurement in Nigeria

Reducing the Burden of Preeclampsia

Offer Erez with Gil Shalev of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, in collaboration with Diomede Ntasumbumuyange of the University of Rwanda in Rwanda, will develop an affordable point-of-care diagnostic platform for prediction and detection of women at risk for preeclampsia early in pregnancy.

BioFET: A New Generation of Preeclampsia Diagnostic Point-of-Care Kits for Personal Use

Accelerating Innovations to Address Heavy Menstrual Bleeding in Women in Low-Resource Settings

Irene Njuguna of Emory University in the U.S. will determine the prevalence and impact of heavy menstrual bleeding in adolescent girls and young women in a variety of community settings in Kenya, as well as the barriers to treatment delivery and uptake.

Addressing Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Among Adolescent and Young Women in Kenya

Cliveland Ogallo of the Center for Public Health and Development (CPHD) with Anne-Beatrice Kihara of the University of Nairobi, both in Kenya, will assess the impact of heavy menstrual bleeding on the health and well-being of adolescent girls in an underserved community in Kenya.

Exploring Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Among Adolescent Girls in Informal Settlements in Nairobi Kenya

Enhancing HIV and TB Diagnosis: Adjunct Technologies for Sample Collection and Processing

Jianghong Rao of Stanford University in the U.S. will develop a magnet-based system for capturing and concentrating the TB bacterium from sputum biosamples to facilitate TB diagnosis.

Magnetic Capturing Technique for Sputum Sample Processing

Manel Mendoza of The Fetal Medicine Foundation in the United Kingdom will validate the safety and efficacy of giving aspirin prophylaxis to 30% of pregnant women at high risk of preeclampsia and discontinuing treatment before the end of pregnancy.

Screening for Preeclampsia in Africa: Feasibility, Adaptation, and Implementation

Nadia Diamond-Smith of the University of California San Francisco in the U.S. will characterize the prevalence and impact of heavy menstrual bleeding as well as treatment preferences in a cohort of women in the state of Rajasthan in India.

Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Across the Lifecourse in India and a Discrete Choice Experiment

David Erickson of Cornell University in the U.S. will develop a device for heat inactivation and mechanical lysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

MAGNILyser: Next-Generation TB Sample Preparation Through Inductive Heating and Mechanical Lysis

Katherine Rucinski of Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. will develop a platform for understanding the determinants of women’s heath inequities in South Africa and for modeling the effects of health interventions.

Epidemiologic Modeling to Advance Women's Health and Wellbeing in South Africa

Sarah Leeber of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, with Marie Josiane Kenfack of the Center for Research on Emerging and Reemerging Diseases (CREMER) in Cameroon, will add DNA sequencing analysis of the vaginal microbiota as a component for a set of clinical trials of menstrual hygiene products in Belgium, Switzerland, Cameroon, and Peru.

ISILUNA: Global Citizen Science Impact on Menstrual Products on the Vaginal Microbiome

Genome Structure-Based Banana Breeding in Southeast Asia

Roanne Gardoce of the University of the Philippines Los Baños in the Philippines will characterize the wild banana relative Mus acuminata ssp. Errans to explore its untapped potential in banana breeding.

Banana Genetic Resource Assessment and Conservation in Southeast Asia: Philippines

Maneesha Inamdar of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India will develop a standardized organoid model of the human endometrium, together with a reproducible and scalable process for generating these organoids.

Develop Functional Assays for the Endometrium from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Suman Chakraborty of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in India will develop a membrane filtration system for Mycobacterium tuberculosis lysis and DNA purification from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

Nanomaterial-Integrated Microfluidic Membrane for Enhanced Lysis in Point-of-Care TB Diagnostics

Jennifer McIntosh of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc. in the U.S. will test the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant MitoQ as a treatment for preeclampsia.

MitoQ to Ameliorate Vascular Function in Preeclampsia

Ianessa Morantte of Prolific Machines Inc. in the U.S. with Arif Jetha of Radiant Biotherapeutics Inc. in Canada, are combining complementary platforms to enhance the production of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) against HIV.

Scaling HIV Multabody Production with Light-Regulated Expression

Rohini Nair of Gujarat Biotechnology University in India will explore the cellular heterogeneity and molecular pathways associated with heavy menstrual bleeding to better understand the condition, using single-cell transcriptional profiling of the endometrium in patients.

Deciphering Cellular Heterogeneity in Endometrium Biopsies from Women with Heavy Menstrual Bleeding

Jeffrey Burke of Prompt Diagnostics, Inc. in the U.S. will develop a low-cost, automated platform integrating blood sample input, plasma separation, and HIV RNA extraction for HIV diagnostic testing.&nbsp;

Prompt HIV Point-of-Care Sample Preparation

Kolawole Akinjiola of mDoc Healthcare in Nigeria will build on mDoc's digital health platform for maternal self-care to pilot test a wearable, vital signs monitor for real-time monitoring of preeclampsia risk during pregnancy.

m-Track: Maternal Tracking and Risk Analysis for Preeclampsia via Digital Wearables

Meng Sun of the Zymeron Corporation in the U.S. will develop a small, handheld, low-cost device for rapid plasma separation from whole blood for HIV diagnostic testing.

A Plasma Separator Enabling HIV Viral Load Tests in Decentralized Settings

Sweta Kanavaje of the Myna Mahila Foundation in India will evaluate the effectiveness of the Myna Bolo chatbot in providing confidential, culturally sensitive, and medically accurate guidance on heavy menstrual bleeding to women in poor urban communities in Mumbai.

Evaluating the Impact of an AI-Powered Chatbot for Heavy Menstrual Bleeding and Sexual and Reproductive Health for Women in India

John Metcalfe of the University of California San Francisco in the U.S. will improve the turboLysis device for mechanical lysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

TurboLysis: A Low-Cost, Small-Footprint Device for Efficient Mycobacterium tuberculosis Cell Lysis

Young Kim of Purdue University in the U.S. will develop a diagnostic platform for prediction and detection of preeclampsia early in pregnancy. The project is based on non-invasive imaging with an unmodified smartphone of the conjunctiva of the eye.

mHealth Conjunctiva Photography for Early Preeclampsia Risk-Stratification

Sam Nugen of Cornell University in the U.S. will develop a bacteriophage-based system for the rapid concentration and lysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

Mycobacteriophagemids: A Synthetic Biology Approach to Rapid and Low-Cost Mycobacterium tuberculosis Concentration and Lysis

Sasivimon Swangpol of Mahidol University in Thailand will collect genetic resources from two banana progenitor species (Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana) in Thailand and Laos, characterize their genotypes and associated phenotypes, and test and store seeds.

Thailand and Laos Banana Genetic Resource Assessment and Conservation for Future Breeding Programs

James Beeson of the Burnet Institute with Stephen Scally of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, both in Australia, will develop candidate malaria mRNA vaccines designed to confer multiple types of immunity over multiple lifecycle stages of the malaria parasite.

Multi-Functional and Multi-Stage Immunity to Transform Malaria Vaccine Efficacy

Alfredo Rubio of Monod Bio, Inc. in the U.S. will develop an affordable point-of-care diagnostic platform for prediction and detection of preeclampsia early in pregnancy.

Affordable Preeclampsia Diagnostic Powered by Computational Protein Design

Ayokunle Olanrewaju, and collaborators Ashleigh Theberge and Erwin Berthier, of the University of Washington in the U.S. will develop a platform for at-home self-collection of blood, serum separation, and sample stabilization at sufficient sample volumes for comprehensive HIV monitoring.

A Self-Sampling System for Collection of Large Volumes of Plasma for Monitoring HIV Care

Anne Beatrice Kihara with Moses Madadi, both of the University of Nairobi in Kenya, will pilot a multipronged approach to support research and development for women's health in Kenya.