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Grand Challenges is a family of initiatives fostering innovation to solve key global health and development problems. Each initiative is an experiment in the use of challenges to focus innovation on making an impact. Individual challenges address some of the same problems, but from differing perspectives.

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Toward a Permanent Influenza Vaccine: Design of Hemagglutinin Antigen Analogs and Vaccination Protocols by Structural Modeling, Atom-Based Simulations, Machine Learning, and Experiments

Martin KarplusHarvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges
Influenza Vaccine
29 Aug 2019

Combining Epitope-Based Vaccine Design with Informatics-Based Evaluation to Obtain a Universal Influenza Vaccine

Rebeca SalmeronFoundation for the National Institutes of Health IncNorth Bethesda, Maryland, United States
Grand Challenges
Influenza Vaccine
28 Aug 2019

Turning Influenza into Measles via Mosaic Natural Selective Targeting of Immune Responses (MONSTIR)

Patrick WilsonUniversity of ChicagoChicago, Illinois, United States
Grand Challenges
Influenza Vaccine
28 Aug 2019

An Unconventionally MHC-Restricted T Cell Vaccine for Influenza

Jonah SachaOregon Health and Science UniversityPortland, Oregon, United States
Grand Challenges
Influenza Vaccine
20 Aug 2019

Digital Immune Optimized and Selected Universal Influenza Vaccine Antigens (DIOS-UIVA)

Jonathan HeeneyUniversity of CambridgeCambridge, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges
Influenza Vaccine
13 Aug 2019

Rational Design of a Universal Flu Vaccine Using Recombinant Neuraminidase

Alice McHardyThe Helmholtz Centre for Infection ResearchBraunschweig, Germany
Grand Challenges
Influenza Vaccine
23 Jul 2019

Real-Time Genomic Epidemiology and Improved Data Sharing to Control Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV)

David AanensenUniversity of OxfordOxford, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
23 May 2019

David Aanensen from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom and Maria van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization in Switzerland will combine next generation DNA sequencing technology with a simple, web-based data collection, processing, and distribution platform to better track the global spread of deadly infectious diseases including Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV). MERS - also known as camel flu - is a viral disease that causes fever, cough, diarrhea, and shortness of breath, and is transmitted from camels to humans. One third of people diagnosed with the disease die. Next generation sequencing (NGS) technology allows rapid, inexpensive detection of pathogens as they spread. However, laboratories in different member states use different formats for sequencing data, and there is no mechanism for sharing it in real time. This limits the value of the technology for stopping outbreaks. To address this, they will establish routine sequencing protocols for both human and camel samples, and develop an interactive web platform on which the sequencing and epidemiological data can be shared. This will help develop more effective, real-time medical and non-medical interventions at local, national, and international levels. Once established, the protocols developed here may be applied to outbreaks of other diseases.

A Systems Level Approach to Crop Health

David HughesPennsylvania State UniversityUniversity Park, Pennsylvania, United States
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
23 May 2019

David Hughes of Pennsylvania State University, John Corbett of aWhere, and Rhiannan Price of DigitalGlobe, in the U.S. will develop a software platform comprising prediction algorithms that leverage artificial intelligence to predict where and when plant diseases and pests will occur from weather and satellite data to alert farmers to check their crops. Pests and diseases are moving targets, however most current surveillance methods monitor only their presence or absence. Predicting when and where they are likely to occur would be more valuable for preventing them. This has recently been made possible by studies on how environmental factors influence the emergence and behaviour of crop pests and diseases. They will use a systems approach that incorporates these new predictors along with historical data and couples them with an artificial intelligence component that learns from ground observations recorded using smartphones to improve accuracy. They will combine their existing agricultural intelligence platform and smartphone application with their prototype predictive model and test their approach with maize and cassava crops on farms across seven different counties in Kenya. The platform will produce location-specific forecasts that can be acted upon immediately by farmers.

Deep Learning (AI) for Histology of Onchocerciasis

Achim HoeraufUniversity Hospital BonnBonn, Germany
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
3 May 2019

Achim Hoerauf of IMMP in Germany will apply artificial intelligence (AI) to speed the development of treatments for onchocerciasis, which is an infectious disease commonly known as River Blindness caused by a parasitic worm. The parasites are spread by affected blackflies, and the worm larvae accumulate in the skin and eyes, causing irritation and sometimes blindness. Nearly 21 million cases occur each year, and 99% of affected people live in Africa. The drug currently used for treatment kills only worm larvae, and studies are ongoing to identify more effective drugs that target adult worms. However, evaluating these drug candidates requires manual analysis using microscopy of samples of irritated skin from patients after treatment. This process is time consuming and slows drug development. To address this, they will use samples that have already been manually annotated to train an AI system to automatically analyze future samples to recognize worm body parts, gender, vitality, and stage of development. Once established, the AI system will be tested with samples from a new clinical trial - tissues from patients treated with the new drug will be analyzed in parallel by human and computer. Once optimized, the AI system will take over the analysis, and the much slower human analysis will only be needed as a quality control system.

PET/CT Signatures to Optimize Tuberculosis Host-Directed Therapy (HDT) Development

Yingda XieRutgers, The State University of NJNewark, New Jersey, United States
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
3 May 2019

Yingda Xie of Rutgers, The State University of NJ and JoAnne Flynn of the University of Pittsburgh, both in the U.S., will develop a non-invasive approach for testing candidate anti-tuberculosis compounds in animal models and patients using positron emission tomography-x-ray computed tomography (PET/CT). Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death in developing countries, and rates are sustained by the causative bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, developing resistance to current drugs. To circumvent this, new drugs are being designed to target human cells and proteins rather than those of the bacteria. To test these drugs, new tools are also needed to monitor TB in patients. 18 Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-PET/CT is a non-invasive imaging tool that uses radioactively-labelled glucose to light up areas of metabolic activity in the body such as the lesions formed by M. tuberculosis and immune cells that play a critical role in infection. They have histopathological sections and cell and chemical data of TB lesions from non-human primate models and will use them to quantify the different lesions. Then, by using the available PET-CT scans of the lesions, they will search for quantitative signatures that can predict a specific type of lesion. The accuracy of these PET/CT signatures will be tested in a separate group of animals. Their study will reveal details of the TB immune response across different lesions, which could help design new treatments, and the signatures can be used to test the activity of new drug candidates in animal models and humans.

Prelacteals: A Source of Infection and Microbiome Disruption?

Alain LabriqueJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public HealthBaltimore, Maryland, United States
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
12 Apr 2019

Alain Labrique of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S. and Meghan Azad of the University of Manitoba in Canada will study the impact of prelacteals - fluids or solids given before breastfeeding is established - on the populations of bacteria in the newborn gut (the microbiome), and how it may affect development. Immediate and exclusive breastfeeding helps maintain healthy growth in infants and protects them against infections, which are also influenced by their gut microbiome. However, in Bangladesh and many other low-resource countries, it is common practice to give newborns ritual foods, like honey or sugar water, before breastfeeding begins, which may impede development. They hypothesize a link between prelacteal use and newborn development mediated by the gut microbiome. To test this, they will use an ongoing population-based study in rural Bangladesh and compare the types and amounts of bacteria in the gut using stool samples of 300 prelacteal-fed and exclusively breastfed infants at 7 days, 28 days and 3 months of life. They will also analyze the composition of the prelacteals being used, including the presence of any toxic contaminants, and of the breastmilk of the mothers, for correlating with any changes in gut microbial populations. The study will enable them to quantify the potentially negative impact of this widespread cultural practice, common to over a billion people across the Gangetic floodplain.

Unlocking the Power of Adolescent Girls Through Agriculture

Eric KaduruKadAfrica Estate LimitedFort Portal, Uganda
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
28 Mar 2019

Eric Kaduru of KadAfrica Estate Limited and John Onekalit of the Kitgum Concerned Women's Association both in Uganda will provide a 12-month, integrated life skills and agricultural training program along with land and seedlings to young refugee women out of school in Uganda to begin their own sustainable passion fruit farming cooperatives. Uganda has accepted many refugees, but also has the world's youngest population and very high unemployment. As a result, particularly girls have very limited employment opportunities if they even manage to finish school, and instead often work in the sex industry or immediately get married. This in turn leads to increased teenage pregnancies and rates of HIV. They will provide a cooperative start-up kit including training in sustainable passion fruit farming, which has a guaranteed market, access to land through a community-based land lease model, and passion fruit seedlings. The girls will also be taught about finance, nutrition, and sexual and reproductive health. They will test their approach in two refugee camps with 180 adolescent girls between 14- and 22-years old who are out of school. The success of the project will be assessed in terms of the effect on poverty and health.

Enhancing Entomological Capacity for Combating Vector-Borne Diseases in Nepal

Ruth MüllerInstitute of Tropical Medicine (ITM)Antwerp, Belgium
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
26 Mar 2019

Ruth Müller of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium and Meghnath Dhimal of the Nepal Health Research Council will provide entomological training for health science students and medical professionals and increase community awareness of vector-borne diseases (VBDs) in Nepal to better equip the population to deal with disease outbreaks. VBDs like those caused by the dengue, zika, or chikungunya viruses cause more than 700,000 deaths annually, mostly in poor countries with limited public health resources and tropical climates. Climate change has expanded the affected areas as warmer temperatures facilitate survival of the insect vectors. They will establish the EntoCAP team to enhance entomological capacity to fight these diseases. The team will hold five-day workshops for 300 health science students and health care professionals on surveillance and control of vector populations, and monitoring of disease outbreaks. They will also increase community interest in VBDs by hosting science labs for children to teach them how to recognize mosquitoes at various developmental stages and understand the dangers of VBDs. In addition, they will begin building a reference collection using DNA barcoding technology to catalog insect vectors by species for studying biodiversity and microevolution of disease vectors.

Circumsporozoite Protein (CSP) Conformational Changes During P. falciparum Sporogony

Elena LevashinaMax Planck Society for the Advancement of Science EVBerlin, Germany
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
25 Mar 2019

Elena Levashina of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Germany and Kelly Lee of the University of Washington in the U.S. will use cryoelectron tomography to image the three-dimensional ultrastructure of a protein on the surface of the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum to help design better vaccines. Malaria kills half a million people annually, but there are still no highly effective vaccines available. One of the parasite's coat proteins, CSP, is a prime target for vaccine development. However, not much is known about its natural structure on the live parasite, which is how inhibitory antibodies produced in response to a vaccine will be able to recognize and destroy it. One of the best ways to observe the natural structure of a protein at high resolution is to immobilize it in non-crystalline ice and image it under very low (< −150 °C) temperatures. They will develop protocols to isolate large numbers of highly pure parasites directly from mosquitoes and carefully cryopreserve them on grids to maintain their natural form and enable clearer imaging. They will also use this high-resolution imaging technique to study how antibody binding affects the parasite. Their results will help design new vaccines that can produce highly active, inhibitory antibodies.

Genetic Approaches to Malaria Control in Africa

Eric OchomoKenya Medical Research InstituteNairobi, Kenya
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
18 Mar 2019

Eric Ochomo of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Kenya and Luc Djogbenou of the University of Abomey (UAC) in Benin will develop a curriculum to teach African scientists how to use genetic approaches to combat insecticide resistance in the fight against malaria. Malaria is a disease that kills almost 500,000 people annually, most in sub-Saharan Africa. People become infected when bitten by mosquitoes that transmit the disease-causing parasites. Insecticide treatment of bed nets and indoor areas are effective methods of disease control, but mosquitoes are becoming resistant. Varying the types of insecticides used and applying them in different combinations can help fight resistance, but it's difficult to know the most effective approach before resistance develops without the help of genetic markers. They will teach African scientists techniques to identify genetic resistance markers including sample collection and preservation, transcriptomic and whole-genome sequencing, and bioinformatics using online and hands-on approaches. This will ensure timely changes to insecticide application to better combat resistance. They will also encourage local scientists to establish industry partnerships to ensure that resistance monitoring can continue long-term.

Establishing a Maker Space Co-Creation Program in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Sophie MowerThe Centre for Global Equality LimitedCambridge, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
15 Mar 2019

Sophie Mower of The Centre for Global Equality in the United Kingdom will establish a collaborative program for technology students at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia using expertise and support from a number of other centers in Africa and beyond to provide training and financial resources for them to research and develop their own innovative solutions to local challenges. Students at the university work on creative solutions such as mapping applications particularly in areas of agriculture and health. However, advancing their ideas is limited by the lack of professional networks and material resources. They will provide a dedicated space at the university and work with the Centre for Global Equality (CGE) and companies in the Cambridge Cluster, both in the United Kingdom, and an African innovation hub. Together, they will provide training for 30 students on co-creating their solutions with end-users to increase their impact. They will also hold an ideation hackathon to generate design ideas, and award $2000 to the six most competitive projects. These will be supported through to prototype development using methods from an incubator approach established at the CGE.

Global Burden of Crop Pests and Disease (GBCrop)

Cambria FinegoldCAB InternationalWallingford, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
13 Mar 2019

Cambria Finegold, Richard Shaw and Roger Day of the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International in collaboration with Katherine Derby of the University of York and Sarah Gurr of the University of Exeter all in the United Kingdom, will design a platform - GBCrop - to collect, analyze and disseminate data on the global impact of crop pests and disease. The fact that 40% of crops are lost to pests impacts both the global food supply and local economies. Despite this, little is known about why and how crop pests and diseases occur. The extent of the problem was acknowledged by the UN declaring 2020 the Year of the Plant. They will design GBCrop to collect large quantities of high-quality data and apply advanced analytical methods to generate results that can then be used to direct research and policy development, and to predict the impact of emerging diseases. The program is modeled after Global Burden of Disease, which has transformed health policy agendas over the last 25 years. They will begin by consulting with key experts, and then include policy makers, private industry representatives, government organizations, potential funders and scientific experts. Together they will decide what data to collect and how it can best be used to accurately predict the impact of emerging crop diseases. They will launch their plan-of-action in the Year of the Plant and aim to make their first recommendations in 2023 on how to maximize crop gains.

Investigating NETosis-Associated Proteins in Human TB Granulomas as Targets for Host-Directed Therapies and Prediction of Disease Progression

Mohlopheni MarakalalaAfrica Health Research InstituteDurban, South Africa
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
13 Mar 2019

Mohlopheni Marakalala of the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa will study the role of specific proteins associated with immune cell death in tuberculosis patients to better understand how the disease progresses and help develop new diagnostics and therapies. Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial disease that causes 1.5 million deaths per year, mostly in poor countries. Understanding how the human immune system responds to TB infection could help develop more effective, host-targeted treatments. Granulomas - tissues that form as a result of inflammation - are commonly seen in the lungs of TB patients. Their characteristics change as the disease progresses and they can cause severe lung damage. Granulomas are thought to be formed by the death of white blood cells called neutrophils, which are also abundant in the airways of patients. He will study granulomas isolated from patients at different stages of the disease to identify proteins linked to neutrophil cell death and see if they are linked with lung damage and disease progression. He will then determine whether the levels of these proteins in the blood can be used as disease biomarkers for the early detection of TB. Lastly, he will use molecular genetic techniques to reduce the level of these proteins in neutrophils and evaluate the effect on TB infection to see if the approach could be exploited as a potential therapy.

Minimal Genomics Lab for AMR Surveillance and Diagnostics in Provincial Low-income Settings

Iruka OkekeUniversity of Ibadan, College of MedicineIbadan, Nigeria
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
8 Mar 2019

Iruka Okeke of the University of Ibadan, College of Medicine in Nigeria and Kat Holt of Monash University in Australia will set-up a remote laboratory that uses nanopore sequencing as a low-cost, portable method to monitor the spread of antimicrobial resistance in rural areas of Africa and combine it with genome editing tools for more rapid diagnosis and improved treatment. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when pathogens are able to survive treatments that previously would have killed them. Infection persists in these patients and spreads to others in the community, increasing both the risk of serious complications and the economic costs. To combat AMR, it needs to be tracked locally and quickly enough to inform treatment. However, traditional tracking methods are slow, and difficult to use in rural settings because of limited resources. Nanopore sequencing technology is a highly portable method of sequencing DNA that is suitable for resource-poor settings. They will setup a prototype minimal bacterial genomics lab at a provincial hospital laboratory in Africa, and use nanopore sequencing to catalog pathogens collected from patients and monitor AMR. They will also combine the sequencing with a genome editing tool - CRISPR-Cas - to enrich for known resistant pathogens and enable much faster diagnosis directly from blood or stool samples. Once optimized in the initial location, the remote lab can be recreated in other areas of Africa.

Virtual Reality High-Resolution Expansion Imaging of Infectious Disease

Caroline StefaniBenaroya Research Institute at Virginia MasonSeattle, Washington, United States
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
5 Mar 2019

Caroline Stefani of the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason and Yongxing (Leon) Zhao of Carnegie Mellon University both in the U.S. will build an imaging platform combining expansion microbiology and confocal virtual reality to visualize complex host-pathogen interactions in infected tissues to help develop new diagnostics and therapeutics. It is the molecular interactions between the host and the pathogen, both in tissues and inside cells, that ultimately dictate whether an infection takes hold or is destroyed. Identifying these interactions could help develop new treatments. However, they remain difficult to study in sufficient resolution. They have developed a new method for three-dimensional visualization of confocal microscopy images using commercial virtual reality technology to pinpoint the subcellular localization of host-pathogen interactions. They will combine this with a new technique, expansion microscopy optimized for microbiology (ExMicro), which visualizes nanoscale details of dozens of different molecules in infected tissue by embedding it in a polyacrylate-based polymer that can be expanded in pure water to improve resolution. They will develop protocols and software to optimize both methods for studying host-pathogen interactions, and build a platform to share their new toolset with the scientific community.

Finding Solutions to Thrive After Birth Asphyxia in Africa

Pia WintermarkResearch Institute of the McGill University Health CentreMontreal, Quebec, Canada
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
1 Mar 2019

Pia Wintermark of McGill University in Canada and Cally Tann of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom will establish a pilot cohort in Uganda of term newborns who suffered from asphyxia at birth, which means that their brain and other organs did not receive enough blood or oxygen, and conduct a clinical test of a novel neurorestorative agent (i.e., to repair brain injuries) to see if it can improve early brain development in this setting. Birth asphyxia and the resulting neonatal encephalopathy is the third leading cause of mortality in infants under five and leads to significant brain damage and long-term neurodevelopmental morbidities. In a rat model of term neonatal brain damage, they found that a compound, sildenafil, reduced brain damage and inflammation, and increased nerve cell growth. This compound has already proven safe for use in humans for other purposes. They will first assemble a pilot cohort of 100 neonates with neonatal encephalopathy in Uganda, and clinically evaluate them over the first three months of age to better characterize the disease in this setting. From this cohort, 30 newborns will be selected to test whether daily treatment of sildenafil from day 2 to day 9 of life can improve brain growth and development and is a feasible and acceptable neurorestorative treatment strategy in this setting.

WRKY This Way: A New Way to Tackle Biotic and Abiotic Stress

Alison BentleyNational Institute of Agricutltural BotanyCambridge, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
1 Mar 2019

Alison Bentley of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany and Ari Sadanandom of the University of Durham both in the United Kingdom will examine whether a new molecular link that they found explaining the increase in plant diseases (biotic factors) associated with high nutrient levels (abiotic factors) can be exploited to maximize wheat crop yield with minimal negative impact on the environment. Wheat, one of the first domesticated food crops, has been grown for over 10,000 years and is critically important to global food supply. Traditionally, crop yields are maximized by applying nitrogen fertilizer to stimulate growth, and fungicides and pesticides to prevent disease. These approaches are expensive and can harm the environment. Another complication is that increasing amounts of nitrogen fertilizer also increases the occurrence of disease. They have identified a group of transcription factors (TFs) - proteins that control expression of specific genes – that appear to protect plants against the fungus Septoria specifically under varying nitrogen levels. To investigate this, they will create transgenic wheat to increase or decrease each TF and explore the effect on disease resistance and growth in different concentrations of nitrogen. Understanding this relationship will allow them to boost plant resistance to disease under high growth conditions, and thereby optimize crop yield with maximal economic gain and minimal environmental impact.

Lactoferrin for Neuroprotection of the Developing Brain

Anne CC LeeBrigham and Women's HospitalBoston, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges
Annual Meeting Call-to-Action
1 Mar 2019

Anne CC Lee and Mandy Brown Belfort of Brigham and Women's Hospital in the U.S. along with Stéphane Sizonenko and Petra Huppi of the University of Geneva in Switzerland will test whether lactoferrin, a breast milk nutrient, can promote growth and reduce injury in the developing infant brain. Of the 15 million annual preterm births, almost a million of the surviving babies have severe neurological defects such as cerebral palsy. However, there are limited treatments available. Breast milk has a positive effect on the infant brain, but the mechanisms for this are unclear. Their preliminary data showed that lactoferrin, a glycoprotein found in breast milk, has a neuroprotective effect in several rat models of neonatal brain injury. They will build on this to study the effect of different concentrations of lactoferrin in the rat models, as well as assaying candidate inflammation, cell death, and neurotrophic factors to identify the molecular mechanisms involved. They will perform a human observational study to associate the different levels of lactoferrin found in breast milk samples from a cohort of mothers of preterm infants at Brigham and Women's Hospital with the infant's brain development as assessed by magnetic resonance imaging. They will also measure lactoferrin levels in samples collected from 100 mothers in Bangladesh to see how they compare. Together, they will generate essential data on lactoferrin for future human clinical trials in low- to middle-income countries.

Testing an Integrated and Innovative Women-Centered Homestead Food Production Model as a Means to Improve Food Security, Nutrition and Women's Empowerment in Cambodia for Future Scale Up

Hou KroeunHelen Keller International (Cambodia)Kampong Cham, Cambodia
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
22 Dec 2015

Hou Kroeun of the Cambodia office of Helen Keller International will evaluate the additional impact of promoting gender equality on households’ food security and health. They will recruit households spanning 180 rural communities in Kampong Cham Province to evaluate the impact of a gender-transformative Enhanced Homestead Food Production intervention, which will provide agricultural training and resources through primary contact with the female head of household, as well as sessions addressing gender issues with all main-decision makers in the family. They will then test the impact of this women-centered approach on household food security and nutritional status.

Understanding Outcomes of Acutely Ill Undernourished Children

Ezekiel MupereCase Western Reserve UniversityCleveland, Ohio, United States
Grand Challenges
All Children Thriving
11 Dec 2015

GAP Year Program (Girls Achieve Power) - Using Sport to Empower Girls at Critical Time of Adolescent Transition

Saiqa MullickWits Health Consortium (Proprietary) LimitedSouth Africa
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
3 Dec 2015

Saiqa Mullick of Wits Reproductive Health & HIV Research Institute (RHI) in South Africa, along with Grass Root Soccer (GRS), Sonke Gender Justice, and the Population Council, will empower adolescent girls in South African townships as they progress in education by increasing their educational, health, social, and economic assets, while at the same time shifting gender attitudes and encouraging positive behavior among adolescent boys. The “Girls Achieve Power” (GAP) Year Program will work with schools and communities to encourage a culture of health and safety, and promote school retention among adolescent girls. Using soccer as a program platform, and enlisting local coaches as facilitators, the program will enable a healthy and productive progression for adolescent girls through secondary school. Aside from these direct benefits, the program will also expand the evidence base around the impact of asset-building approaches for adolescent girls.

A Novel Nano-Iron Supplement (IHAT) to Safely Combat Iron Deficiency and Anemia (IDA)

Andrew PrenticeMedical Research CouncilSwindon, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges
Global Health Interventions
30 Nov 2015

Andrew Prentice of the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom will conduct a phase II clinical trial to test the ability of a unique nano iron compound to safely and more effectively treat iron-deficiency anemia in children. Iron-deficiency anemia is a common condition particularly in women and children in resource-poor settings and can be deadly. Current iron supplements have limited effects in these settings and undesirable side effects including increasing the risk of infectious diarrhea in children which causes severe morbidity and mortality. They previously developed a compound iron hydroxide adipate tartrate that acts like dietary iron as it can be directly absorbed in humans keeping it away from any resident intestinal pathogens that also use it as a nutrient source. They will perform an intervention study with 600 iron-deficient anemic children in The Gambia and compare their compound with the current supplement to see if it can normalize iron levels without the side effects.

Normalizing Tuberculosis Granuloma Vasculature and Matrix to Improve Drug Delivery and Efficacy

Rakesh JainGeneral Hospital CorporationBoston, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges
Global Health Interventions
23 Nov 2015

Rakesh Jain of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will develop a new treatment strategy for tuberculosis to boost the activity of existing anti-tuberculosis drugs. Tuberculosis is one of the most infectious diseases in the world. Current treatments are lengthy poorly tolerated and do not eradicate latent infections which are found in around one third of the general population and contribute to drug resistance. During latent infection the tuberculosis bacteria are dormant and reside in small inflammatory areas in the lungs known as granulomas. These granulomas are surrounded by abnormal blood vessels and dense tissue that they hypothesize make it difficult for drugs to permeate. They will use a small animal disease model and patient lung samples to test whether co-treatment with anti-angiogenics and anti-fibrotics can normalize the blood vessels and improve the delivery of anti-tuberculosis drugs thereby increasing their activity and potentially shortening treatment duration.

Umodzi - Men, Women, Boys and Girls in Alliance to Achieve Gender Equality

Thokozani MwenyekondeCAREAtlanta, Georgia, United States
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
19 Nov 2015

Thokozani Mwenyekonde from CARE in Malawi is implementing the Umodzi project to promote gender equality for women and girls by engaging adolescent girls and boys, along with supportive adult male and female role models, to integrate gender equitable attitudes and behavior in schools as a basis for changing attitudes nationwide. Umodzi, which means "oneness" in the local Chichewa language, will build upon and adapt existing gender equality approaches including integrating efforts into the school curriculum, training teachers who convene teen club meetings, and working with adults who are also engaged in CARE's pro-women agriculture and savings programs in the school catchment areas.

Digital Sub-Wallets for Increased Financial Empowerment of Women

Lauren HendricksCAREAtlanta, Georgia, United States
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
19 Nov 2015

Lauren Hendricks and team at CARE in Uganda will analyze whether motivating women to use mobile financial technology increases their involvement in making household financial decisions, and subsequently improves family health and education. They will develop mobile money subwallets for specific purposes such as school fees and pregnancy so that women can more securely manage their savings. They will also work with influential members of a subset of households to help promote gender equality and develop a consensus towards a household financial action plan.

Promoting Female Empowerment at the Household Level with Family Planning Use, Financial Literacy and Gender Sensitization Education Among Couples in Ibadan, Nigeria

Funmilola OlaOlorunUniversity of Ibadan, College of MedicineIbadan, Nigeria
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
18 Nov 2015

Funmilola OlaOlorun of the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and Neetu John of the International Center for Research on Women, in the U.S. will conduct a cluster randomized control trial to evaluate a multi-pronged approach for empowering Nigerian women within the household and thereby the wider community. Their program targets both partners of couples, both individually and together, and involves training on gender socialization and finance, and access to family planning. The aim is to generate rigorous evidence on how to promote gender equality in household decision-making and improve family health and wellbeing.

A Synthetic Biology Platform for Rapid Generation of Highly Diverse Natural Product-Like Compounds Active Against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mike TyersUniversité de MontréalMontreal, Quebec, Canada
Grand Challenges
Global Health Interventions
18 Nov 2015

Michael Tyers of the University of Montreal in Canada will develop a synthetic biology platform to generate vast libraries of natural product-like compounds and use them to identify new drugs for tuberculosis. Traditional drug discovery screens require expensive chemical libraries that are limited in size and scope. Many existing drugs are derived from the natural products of microbes which perform a wide variety of biological functions. This functional diversity is reflected by their structural diversity which is generated by the combinatorial action of hundreds of thousands of different enzymes. They will exploit this natural manufacturing process for the relatively simple and low-cost production of millions to billions of chemically-diverse natural product-like compounds. This will be achieved by expressing different combinations of the enzymes in yeast artificial chromosomes which then allows screening directly in the yeast without the need for costly and time-consuming chemical extraction and purification. Using this approach they will perform a pilot screen to identify new compounds that inhibit the growth of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis.

Girls for Health: Empowering Rural Girls' Transition from School to Employment as Health Workers

Fatima AdamuFederal University Birnin KebbiBirnin Kebbi, Nigeria
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
16 Nov 2015

Fatima Adamu from the Federal University Birnin Kebbi in Nigeria will support the transition of adolescent girls from secondary school into heath-related careers such as medicine, midwifery, and nursing to address the shortage of female health workers specifically in rural northern Nigeria. Social norms dictate that women only receive reproductive care from females, so a shortage means that many, particularly in the North, do not receive any health care during pregnancy. Additionally, women who pursue careers are more likely to have children later, which is associated with a healthier life. They will integrate existing and new education strategies, including coaching particularly female teachers in student-centered learning methods, to improve core academic and vocational training, and enhance life skills for girls. Their approach will be tested using a controlled trial.

Epigenetic and Biological Markers of Preterm Birth, Fetal Growth, Early Childhood Growth and Neurodevelopment: Expanding the Scope of AMANHI Pregnancy Biorepository Cohort

Rajiv BahlWorld Health OrganizationGeneva, Switzerland
Grand Challenges
All Children Thriving
14 Nov 2015

Empowering Women and Increasing Sanitation: Making the Rural WASH Market Work

Sarah van BoekhoutWaterSHED CambodiaPhnom Penh, Cambodia
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
11 Nov 2015

Sarah van Boekhout and the team of WaterSHED in Cambodia will further catalyze the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) market by developing a women’s mentorship network and a special marketing program in order to improve the productivity and decision-making power of women in rural Cambodia. This project focuses on the success of female entrepreneurs in the market for WASH products and sevices. Members of the capacity-building and mentorship network, branded as the WEwork collective, will receive support and training on personal, professional, and community leadership; business planning; and financial literacy. This approach will be tested with more than 200 women across eight target provinces in Cambodia, and will emphasize community-driven peer coaching and support. WaterSHED will also reshape WASH marketing tools and strategies in order to better reach rural women consumers and to promote the success of business women in the supply chain. The outcomes of this project will better inform the design of women’s economic empowerment programs worldwide.

A Win-Win for Gender, Agriculture and Nutrition: Testing a Gender-Transformative Approach from Asia in Africa

Laurent UwumuremyiCAREAtlanta, Georgia, United States
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
10 Nov 2015

Laurent Uwumuremyi and team at CARE in Burundi will evaluate the impact of an intensive gender transformative approach among women smallholder farmers relative to a current “gender-light” approach for delivering income, food security and women’s empowerment outcomes through agricultural development interventions. Their transformative approach focuses more deeply on gender by generating awareness of the issues, building personal skills, and directly challenging underlying inequalities through dialogue and collective action involving male relatives and the wider community. They will train facilitators and recruit a total of 7,500 women in two provinces in Burundi for a four-year study. The research will provide essential evidence-based policy recommendations for the agricultural sector to help improve global food security and well-being.

ListenUp: Amplifying Girls' Voices Through Sanitary Pads and Health Information

Elizabeth OmbechZanaAfrica GroupNairobi, Kenya
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
10 Nov 2015

Elizabeth Ombech of ZanaAfrica Group Ltd. in Kenya seeks to implement safe, accurate, and cost-effective reproductive health innovations for girls—in the form of disposable sanitary pads coupled with girl-centered reproductive health information and resources—and to evaluate this approach against traditional facilitation-based methods for impact on girls’ educational attainment, sexual behavior, reproductive health, and self-determination in order to expand the global evidence base surrounding the role of menstrual health-focused interventions in gender parity, health, and development.

Pre-Clinical Development of a Pan-Species Multi-Stage Universal Vaccine for the Malaria Eradication Agenda

Louis SchofieldJames Cook UniversityCairns, Queensland, Australia
Grand Challenges
Global Health Interventions
9 Nov 2015

Louis Schofield of James Cook University in Australia will develop a broad-spectrum malaria vaccine that is effective against different life-cycle stages of multiple species of the causative Plasmodium parasite. More than one third of the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria. However developing an effective vaccine is challenging because humans are infected by five quite distinct Plasmodium species. In addition the parasites pass through very different developmental stages including sporozoites which mosquitoes inject into the human bloodstream a disease-causing blood stage and a transmissible sexual stage. Using Grand Challenges Explorations funding they have already identified a surface oligosaccharide antigen conserved in several Plasmodium species that when combined with generic carriers and adjuvants can generate a strong immune response that blocks several life-cycle stages in animal models. They will perform further key preclinical evaluations to determine the full efficacy of the vaccine and whether it should proceed to testing in humans.

The Fifth H: Her - Empowering Girls Through 4-H's Methodology of "Learning by Doing"

Appiah Kwaku Boateng4-H GhanaKoforidua, Ghana
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
6 Nov 2015

Appiah Kwaku Boateng of 4-H Ghana in Ghana will support 600 new and existing 4-H school and community clubs in Ghana, which teach livelihood and life skills such as business planning, farming and communication, with a stronger focus on girls. This will serve to enhance the economic and education opportunities particularly for young girls who are more vulnerable to unemployment. They will recruit and train more women to run the clubs and engage girls by acting as mentors, and to act as district advisers. They aim to develop a successful approach that can then be implemented across Africa.

Smart Payment Schemes as a Gateway to Women's Financial Inclusion and Socioeconomic Empowerment

Rohini PandeHarvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
3 Nov 2015

Rohini Pande of Harvard University in the U.S. will conduct two large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which will investigate whether female-friendly modifications to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGS) program in India can improve program efficiency and increase rural women's employment, financial inclusion, and empowerment. They will also test the efficacy of transparency tools to document wage payment delays to understanding whether holding local implementers accountable can decrease payment delays to women.

Measuring Change in the Decision-Making Role of Pastoral Women at the Household Level as a Result of their Financial and Social Empowerment

Kathleen ColsonThe BOMA Project, Inc.Manchester Center, Vermont, United States
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
28 Oct 2015

Kathleen Colson of The BOMA Project, Inc. in Kenya will investigate, measure and document how participation in BOMA’s Rural Entrepreneur Access Project (REAP)—a holistic two-year program of sequenced interventions—translates to such gender-influenced outcomes as increased household financial decision-making by women, increased education opportunities for girls and increased food security and use of healthcare by the household. REAP is a high-impact poverty graduation program that addresses the geographic and socio-economic context of the arid and semi-arid lands of Africa, where the harsh effects of climate change and endemic extreme poverty persistently undermine the well-being of women and children. The project provides ultra-poor Kenyan women cash grants, business skills training, mentoring and the opportunity to set up their own business to help lift their families out of poverty. Giving women more power over household spending tends to lead to improved family health care and education. They will recruit 750 women living in extreme poverty in pastoral communities to their two-year poverty graduation program. Upon these women exiting REAP, they will analyze its impact on improving the education and social standing of women and girls, and the physical and financial wellbeing of their families.

Improving Women's Access and Usage of Digital Financial Services

Flora MyambaResearch on Poverty Alleviation (REPOA)Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Grand Challenges
Women and Girls
28 Oct 2015

Flora Myamba of Repoa Ltd. in Tanzania will evaluate different methods for motivating women to use mobile financial services by performing a randomized control trial in Tanzania. Access to mobile money platforms in developing countries can help alleviate poverty, but many people, particularly women, do not own a mobile phone, and if they do, it is unclear whether they will use it for financial purposes. They will recruit 2,000 low-income women in Tanzania and provide them with different types of mobile phones and data packages to determine which combination leads to the biggest uptake of digital financial services, and analyze how it improves the welfare of women.

Preventing Preterm Birth in Zambia

Jeffrey StringerUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillChapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
Grand Challenges in Global Health
Preventing Preterm Birth
1 Oct 2013

Jeffrey Stringer of the University of North Carolina Global Women’s Health group in the U.S. will oversee a team of Zambian and U.S. researchers in a prospective cohort study of 2,000 pregnant women over a three-year period in Lusaka, Zambia. The study will assess gestational age by early ultrasound and collect data and specimens throughout pregnancy and at delivery with standardized systems to document complications of pregnancy and assessment of birth outcomes. Data and specimens will be used to evaluate the causes of preterm birth and investigate novel strategies for prevention.

Determinants of Preterm Birth Associated with Bacterial Trafficking from the Lower Genital Tract

David EschenbachUniversity of WashingtonSeattle, Washington, United States
Grand Challenges in Global Health
Preventing Preterm Birth
1 Jul 2013

David Eschenbach and his team from the University of Washington in the U.S. will determine the effect of disturbances in the vaginal microbiome on preterm birth. Their research will investigate how specific vaginal bacterial infections and changes in the female reproductive tract are associated with preterm birth. The long-term goal is to identify new ways for early identification and treatment of women at risk of preterm birth and develop a point-of-care diagnostic test appropriate for low-resource settings, which would function much like a home pregnancy test, indicating an elevated risk of premature birth.

Systems Biology of Preterm Birth: A Pilot Study

Stephen LyeMount Sinai HospitalToronto, Ontario, Canada
Grand Challenges in Global Health
Preventing Preterm Birth
1 Feb 2013

Stephen Lye at Mount Sinai Hospital in Canada and his team will initiate a pilot study that will use a systems biology analysis of genomic, proteomic and plasma markers to identify novel pathways and biomarkers to preterm birth, as well as define the risk of preterm birth in pregnant women. Previous efforts to identify pathways or biomarkers associated with preterm birth have focused on single methodological approaches. With new capabilities in computational analyses, it is now possible to integrate information from multiple analytic techniques – collectively known as systems biology – to derive informative pathways and potential diagnostic biomarkers.

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