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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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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.

Ensure Year-Wise Nutritional Food Security to Indian Women Through Community Level Implementation of Domestic Solar Conduction Dryer

Vaibhav TidkeScience for SocietyAurangabad, , India
Grand Challenges India
Agriculture and Nutrition
15 Dec 2015

The project aims to ensure food-security throughout the entire year in a rural district by storing food through an innovative technology known as the Solar Conduction Dryer. It also aims to add extra income to women farmers from the sale of the dehydrated products of this technology, while providing valuable lessons in post-harvest losses.

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.

Engineering Hurdles: Mitigating Bacteriophage-Resistance

Samuel AlcaineUniversity of Massachusetts AmherstAmherst, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Samuel Alcaine of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the U.S. will engineer bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) to produce an antimicrobial compound that helps avoid bacteria such as enteroaggregative Escherichia coli developing resistance to the phage, thereby increasing their value for treating associated childhood diseases. Phage could be valuable for treating intestinal diseases that cause severe morbidity and mortality in developing countries as they can selectively destroy pathogenic bacteria. However, some bacteria rapidly develop resistance to the phage, which renders them useless. By inducing phage-infected bacteria to also release a toxic substance (bacteriocin), this would destroy any potentially resistant neighboring bacteria. They will engineer T7 bacteriophage to express one of two selected bacteriocins and test their ability to circumvent phage resistance in E. coli.

A SIM Overlay Platform to Extend Phone Payments Offline

Ross AndersonUniversity of Cambridge Computer LaboratoryCambridge, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mobile Money
1 Nov 2015

Ross Anderson at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom will develop technology to enable secure offline phone-to-phone and card-to-phone payments between customers and merchants. The ability to use mobile phones to make and receive payments has expanded access to secure financial services in low-resource settings. However, the requirement of a network connection makes it particularly problematic in rural communities. They will develop SIM overlay technology, modern cryptography and audio coupling to securely transfer payments offline also from a SIM format payment card for those without a phone. Merchants can then bank the payments periodically whenever they have a network connection. They will evaluate their prototype for usability and security, and work towards interoperability across countries so that migrant workers can also use it.

Tissue Oxygen Saturation in Malnutrition and Pneumonia

Mark AnserminoUniversity of British ColumbiaVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Grand Challenges Explorations
Pneumonia
1 Nov 2015

Mark Ansermino of The University of British Columbia in Canada will adapt near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for the simple diagnosis and monitoring of children at increased risk of mortality from pneumonia. Children with moderate to severe malnutrition who develop pneumonia are far more likely to die than more nourished children, but diagnosing pneumonia in these individuals is problematic, likely due in part to muscle wasting that masks the classic symptoms of fast breathing and chest indrawing. NIRS is non-invasive and portable, and can rapidly measure tissue oxygenation levels, which will be reduced by oxidative stress in children with malnutrition. They will collect arm muscle saturation data using NIRS on 200 children under five years old admitted for lung infections at a clinic in Uganda, and use the data to design a prototype device and protocols for identifying at risk children.

Digital Merchant On-Boarding in Uganda

Ronald AzairwePegasus Technologies LimitedKampala, Uganda
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mobile Money
1 Nov 2015

Ronald Azairwe of Pegasus Technologies Ltd. in Uganda will develop an online portal coupled with attractive incentives to recruit merchants and train them to accept mobile money in Uganda. Current methods of recruitment are slow and require multiple in-person visits, which can be difficult in remote areas. The portal will enable merchants to register online and an incentive structure will be developed to reward merchants based on transaction volume. They will test their portal by advertising to merchants in one urban and one rural location where large numbers of employees receive their salary in mobile money, thereby boosting demand for merchants to accept mobile money. They will also provide an online and phone-based helpline.

Lytic Bacteriophages: Stabilizing the Gut Microbiome

Paul BarrowUniversity of NottinghamLoughborough, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Paul Barrow of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom will identify bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) that can reduce the presence of multiple pathogenic bacteria in the gut to restore healthy bacterial populations (microbiome) and help treat diarrheal diseases. They will characterize phage specificity for three major pathogens that infect both humans and pigs, and select those that are less likely to cause the development of resistance. As pigs are a valuable model for diarrheal diseases in children, they will test the selected phage in their pig enteric model to evaluate their ability to reduce pathogen numbers and restore a healthy gut microbiome.

A Bacteriophage Platform for Programmable Killing of Bacteria

Chase BeiselNorth Carolina State UniversityRaleigh, North Carolina, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Chase Beisel of North Carolina State University in the U.S. will exploit non-lytic bacteriophage for promoting infant gut health and treating enteric infections in low-resource settings. Generally, lytic phage are being studied for treating diseases, but they suffer from a number of limitations including causing resistance and the release of endotoxins, which can damage healthy cells. They will use the CRISPR-Cas9 defense system to engineer non-lytic P1 phage to specifically target the bacteria Shigella sonnei, which is a leading cause of enteric diseases in children in the developing world. The engineered phage, which can be produced at low cost, will be tested for ability to efficiently infect and kill the targeted bacteria.

Billions of Transactions, Thousands of Photos: Combining Mobile Network Operator Data with Crowd-Sourced Photographs to Measure the Availability and Use of Digital Financial Services

Joshua BlumenstockUniversity of WashingtonSeattle, Washington, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Financial Services Data
1 Nov 2015

Joshua Blumenstock of the University of Washington in the U.S. will combine data on mobile phone call details and mobile money use with photographs taken of local infrastructures such as electricity supply, to map access to and use of digital financial services in Ghana. They have access to vast anonymized datasets on phone and mobile money transactions in Ghana, and a technology platform developed by Premise that collects photographs and observations from local citizens to measure economic and social infrastructures. They will develop a method to combine these data and apply standard machine learning in order to measure access to digital financial services across the country.

Disrupting Steroid Signals in Adult Anopheles

Flaminia CatterucciaPresident and Fellows of Harvard CollegeCambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Malaria Transmission
1 Nov 2015

Flaminia Catteruccia of President and Fellows of Harvard College in the U.S. will produce fabrics and nets treated with the dibenzoylhydrazine (DBH) compound methoxyfenozide, which is toxic to malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, to prevent these insects from entering households and spreading disease. The compound is non-toxic to mammals but disrupts steroid signaling pathways in the mosquito, which is a different mechanism than existing insecticides, reducing lifespan and causing sterility. They will combine it with insecticide and evaluate different formulations on geographically diverse mosquito species in the laboratory. The best formulations will then be tested on specific field-collected outdoor mosquito populations from southern Africa.

Affordable and Accurate Malnutrition Diagnostic Device

Pavan DadlaniPhilips ResearchEindhoven, Netherlands
Grand Challenges Explorations
Pneumonia
1 Nov 2015

Pavan Dadlani of Phillips Research in The Netherlands will create a handheld three-dimensional scanner that can automatically analyze body shape and assess malnutrition in young children, which is a strong risk factor for mortality associated with a variety of common diseases. Current physical measurements of children to assess nutritional status are time-consuming, uncomfortable for the child, and difficult to take accurately, particularly in low-resource settings. They will develop and test an algorithm for measuring height, upper arm length, and circumference of the head, belly and upper arm from a three dimensional image, by collecting data from children between 0 and 5 years old. They will also produce a user-friendly design for health workers by conducting a field analysis in low-resource settings.

Merchant Acquiring and Mobile Payments Platform (Mampp) for Shops and Points of Sale

Akinola DixonRoja Payment Solutions Limited (a Qrios Company)Lagos, Nigeria
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mobile Money
1 Nov 2015

Akinola Dixon of Qrios Networks in Nigeria will simplify mobile money payments by building a platform incorporating a unique digital identity for all customer accounts and merchants, and leveraging a stable carrier signaling network using low-cost, automated communication technologies. When a merchant wishes to sell goods, the platform generates a unique payment code for the consumer to authorize on their mobile phone, and the money is transferred. They will research the requirements for their approach, design the required software, and test their platform.

An Artificial Diet for Wolbachia-Infected Ae. aegypti

Heverton DutraCentro de Pesquisas René Rachou - FIOCRUZBelo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mosquito Control
1 Nov 2015

Heverton Dutra of Centro de Pesquisas René Rachou, FIOCRUZ in Brazil will develop an artificial diet based on protein and fat to sustain mosquitoes infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which are needed in large numbers to prevent transmission of the dengue virus. These mosquitoes are currently being bred using vertebrate blood, which is difficult to obtain and store, and subject to stringent regulations. They will test variations of cholesterol and amino acids combined with the mixture of bovine serum albumin and phagostimulant that is known to support egg production in non-infected mosquitoes, on egg numbers laid by Wolbachia-infected females. The diet is relatively low cost and comprises widely available ingredients that could be used to support mass-rearing of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes.

Barcoded Insect Screens to Optimize Articial Diets

Koen DecheringTropIQ Health SciencesNijmegen, Netherlands
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mosquito Control
1 Nov 2015

Koen Dechering of TropIQ in The Netherlands will produce an artificial meal for breeding blood-feeding mosquitoes more easily and effectively in the lab. They will develop a high-throughput screening approach using molecular barcodes carried by endosymbiont bacteria that each tag an individual meal consumed by a live mosquito. The barcodes can then be used to identify those meals that best promote egg laying and longevity from a large pool of test foods. They will rationally design the protein and lipid compositions of the test foods for their screen by using mass spectrometry on blood-fed mosquitoes. Optimized diets identified from the screen will be further validated and analyzed for stability also at tropical ambient temperatures.

Combining Phages with CRISPR for Ecological Vaccination

Kevin EsveltPresident and Fellows of Harvard CollegeCambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Kevin Esvelt of President and Fellows of Harvard College in the U.S. will use CRISPR technology to make protective healthy bacteria resistant to phage so they can outcompete pathogenic bacteria that cause childhood diarrhea and stunting. He will develop a method to make the protective Nissle 1917 strain of E. coli resistant to a range of phage, and use it to replace native E. coli strains in the guts of young mice as a model for human infants. This approach will provide long-term protection against pathogenic bacterial infections at low cost.

Disarming Type III Secretion System of Enteric Pathogens

Alessio FasanoMassachusetts General HospitalBoston, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Alessio Fasano of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will isolate bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) that specifically kill pathogenic Escherichia coli and Shigella bacteria, which cause environmental enteropathy and other potentially deadly childhood diseases. They will perform a high-throughput screen using a diverse phage library to isolate phage that specifically target the type-III secretion system expressed by enteric pathogens like E. coli. They will also test an alternative approach by constructing phage to carry so-called CRISPR-Cas9 nucleases that they will engineer to target and cleave bacterial type-III secretion system genes. Results from both approaches will be tested for their capacity to selectively kill enteric pathogens and inhibit infection in a human organoid model, which consists of different cell layers to mimic the structure and function of the human gut.

Finance Application Tool

Ruth FosterTIWA, LLCScottsdale, Arizona, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mobile Money
1 Nov 2015

Ruth Foster of TIWA, LLC in the U.S. will develop a finance application tool using money pictures to enable illiterate users to make accurate transactions. They will design and test a tablet with touch screen and build associated software for consumers that can be used to scan barcodes, or manually add products and prices. The final cost of the purchases will be automatically displayed using images of real money, which the consumer can then use to pay the correct amount.

Development of a Pan-Anti-Anopheles Livestock Vaccine

Brian FoyColorado State UniversityFort Collins, Colorado, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Malaria Transmission
1 Nov 2015

Brian Foy of Colorado State University in the U.S. will use antibodies that bind essential proteins in the mosquito Anopheles in order to block malaria transmission. They have already produced antibodies that bind conserved mosquito antigens such as the glutamate-gated chloride channel and used them to supplement blood meals, which was lethal to feeding mosquitoes. They will test whether cattle injected with these antigens produce the corresponding antibodies that are also lethal to the mosquitoes that feed off them.

BIOTOPE - Biomarkers to Diagnose Pneumonia

Joe GallagherUniversity College DublinDublin, Ireland
Grand Challenges Explorations
Pneumonia
1 Nov 2015

Joe Gallagher together with Chris Watson of University College Dublin in Ireland will develop a method to quickly and accurately diagnose bacterial pneumonia in children with acute respiratory infections so that the correct treatments can be given. Physical symptoms of bacterial pneumonia are similar to many other diseases including malaria but they require vastly different treatments. They will use a screening approach to identify protein, metabolite or miRNA biomarkers of bacterial pneumonia in blood and urine samples from 500 children in Malawi clinics with a known diagnosis of pneumonia. The most specific biomarker panel will be combined with a selected panel of symptoms such as heart and breathing rate to generate a highly sensitive clinical prediction model that specifically diagnoses bacterial pneumonia and can be used in low- to middle-income countries.

Phage Therapy in a Weaned Piglet Model of Enteropathy

Jason GillTexas A&M AgriLife ResearchCollege Station, Texas, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Jason Gill of Texas A&M AgriLife Research in the U.S. will develop an animal model for environmental enteropathy, which is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gut prevalent in children from low-income countries, to test new bacteriophage-based treatments. Bacteriophage (phage) are viruses that infect and can kill bacteria, and can therefore be used to treat bacterial diseases. They will develop a chronic disease model by infecting weaned piglets with low doses of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, which is likely involved in environmental enteropathy development in humans. They will also search for a combination of different phage types that can infect and destroy this bacterial strain and effectively cure the disease in their animal model.

Smart Mobile Prepaid Debit Card

Jean-claude Gouesseecash expressBlaineville, Quebec, Canada
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mobile Money
1 Nov 2015

Jean-Claude Gouesse of Ecash Express in Canada will promote the use of mobile money in the Ivory Coast by establishing mobile money payment options for merchants to purchase supplies, and providing a free prepaid debit card for customers to pay for goods. When merchants can use mobile money to buy their own goods, they may also be more willing to receive mobile money payments from their own customers, particularly if they earn commission. They will build a user-friendly interface, and evaluate uptake by issuing 10,000 prepaid cards that can be loaded at participating retail stores, and providing 500 free, low-end Android devices to merchants for accepting payments.

Mobiles4All: New Users, New Insights, Better Data

Margaret McConnellMobiles4AllScottsdale, Arizona, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Financial Services Data
1 Nov 2015

Margaret McConnell of Harvard University and Mindy Hernandez of Mobiles4All (M4A) in the U.S. will generate rich datasets related to mobile phone use in Africa by providing mobile phones and incentives for users to share data. These datasets are of value to policymakers to promote the use of mobile money. They are collaborating with mobile network operator Vodacom Mozambique, behavioral scientists at Harvard University and developmental experts. They will run a pilot test, offering at-cost smart phones to 5,000 low-income customers in Mozambique, and evaluate the value of offering rewards in exchange for completing phone-based surveys. These surveys will be far quicker and simpler and cost less than traditional population-based surveys. They will combine the survey data with mobile network data, and package the results into a simple dashboard that can inform about mobile money use and how it might be enhanced.

Thermal Images of the Lung on a Smart Phone to Differentiate Bacterial from Non-bacterial Causes of Pneumonia

Patricia HibberdMassachusetts General HospitalBoston, Massachusetts, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Pneumonia
1 Nov 2015

Patricia Hibberd of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will develop a low-cost thermal imaging system for a smart phone to diagnose bacterial pneumonia in children from developing countries where the standard chest X-ray is often unavailable. They predict that children with pneumonia specifically caused by bacteria will have asymmetric “hot spots” of high temperatures in the lungs caused by localized inflammation. They will perform a proof-of-concept study in children under age 5 with chest infections in a large hospital in Malawi using the FLIR One Thermal Imaging System attached to a smartphone. At least 10 thermal images will be taken, and two short videos to record breathing rate, and the data will be used to develop statistical approaches for the required analytics. They will evaluate performance for diagnosing pneumonia by comparing it to the standard chest X-ray.

Exploring Mobile Money Transaction Data

Paula Hidalgo-SanchisPulse Lab Kampala - UN Global PulseKampala, Uganda
Grand Challenges Explorations
Financial Services Data
1 Nov 2015

Paula Hidalgo-Sanchis and team at Pulse Lab Kampala – UN Global Pulse in Uganda will develop software that can transform raw data on mobile money use in developing countries into user-friendly formats to inform policymakers and researchers to help expand the field. They will collect mobile money and call detail records from two collaborating network providers, while ensuring privacy of users. In parallel, they will collect complementary datasets such as household survey data to enrich the value of the financial services data. They will process the data to evaluate the relationship between mobile money usage and, for example, geographical location or local economic and environmental factors.

The Phageome of Environmental Enteropathy

Lori HoltzWashington University in St. LouisSt. Louis, Missouri, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Lori Holtz of Washington University in the U.S. will analyze the composition of bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) in the gut of young children to see if it is linked with the chronic inflammatory gut condition, environmental enteropathy, which is highly prevalent in low-income countries and is linked to malnutrition and stunted growth. They will perform metagenomic sequencing on available fecal samples taken over a 6-month period from 489 children under age two from Malawi who were tested for gut dysfunction. They will analyze both RNA and DNA bacteriophage populations as well as the bacterial microbiome and evaluate their association with each other and with the development of environmental enteropathy. Specific bacteriophage associated with the presence or absence of the disease could lead to the development of new treatments.

A Point-of-Care Instrument for Rapid Diagnosis of Pneumonia

Bastiaan HoogendoornCardiff UniversityCardiff, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges Explorations
Pneumonia
1 Nov 2015

Bastiaan Hoogendoorn at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom will develop a simple, inexpensive breath-testing device to measure the type and levels of bacteria in the lungs for rapid diagnosis of pneumonia in children in low-resource settings. Rather than condensing the exhaled breath, which can cause variation, the device directly captures respiratory fluid droplets containing non-volatile pathogen markers. These markers can then be identified using low-cost commercially available bioassay kits. They will analyze biomarker levels in the breath of sick and healthy children, and test and refine the design of their prototype.

Smartphone Image Processing to Assess Childhood Malnutrition

Heba KhamisUniversity of New South WalesSydney, New South Wales, Australia
Grand Challenges Explorations
Pneumonia
1 Nov 2015

Heba Khamis of the University of New South Wales in Australia will use smartphone technology to more accurately measure malnutrition in children from developing countries, which puts them at increased risk of death from diseases such as pneumonia. They will develop an image-processing algorithm for calculating three key growth parameters (height, and arm and head circumference) and thereby assessing nutritional status from a photograph of a child taken by a smartphone. They will recruit twenty children to help refine the algorithm and the protocol for taking the photograph, which will then be validated on an independent set of children.

Assessing Malnutrition in Pneumonia using BIVA

Carina KingInstitute for Global HealthLondon, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges Explorations
Pneumonia
1 Nov 2015

Carina King of the Institute for Global Health in the United Kingdom will use bioelectric impedance vector analysis (BIVA) to measure nutritional status in children with pneumonia in Malawi in order to improve treatment. Malnutrition is strongly associated with poor prognosis in pneumonia but is difficult to accurately assess. BIVA measures bioelectric properties to predict physiological parameters such as hydration and body mass of specific body regions. They will develop a protocol and evaluate BIVA for assessing nutritional status in children with pneumonia compared to current assessment methods. They will also lead focal discussion groups to evaluate related knowledge and likely acceptance of the protocol by health workers and care staff. Finally they will conduct a pilot training program on the technology for health care workers.

Life or virulence? Phage Cocktails That Make Bacteria Choose

Anika KinkhabwalaEpiBiomeSouth San Francisco, California, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Bacteriophage
1 Nov 2015

Anika Kinkhabwala of EpiBiome in the U.S. will exploit the development of resistance to bacteriophage by pathogenic bacteria to improve children’s gut health. Bacteriophage recognize proteins and other molecules found on the surface of bacteria, which they use to infect and kill them. They will identify bacteriophage isolated from fecal and sewage samples that can target virulence structures on the surface of the pathogenic bacteria enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) and Shigella dysenteriae, which are common diarrhea-causing bacteria. Faced with such bacteriophage, pathogenic bacterial populations would become enriched with mutants that escaped phage infection by virtue of having lost these virulence factors, with resistant bacteria thereby less harmful to humans. They will characterize how these bacteria develop resistance to specific phage and build a cocktail of phage that target different bacterial virulence structures to further weaken pathogenic bacteria and help cure diarrheal disease.

Direct Mobile Consumer Data Collection Tool

Chris LockeCaribou Digital (UK) LtdFarnham, United Kingdom
Grand Challenges Explorations
Financial Services Data
1 Nov 2015

Chris Locke of Caribou Digital (UK) Ltd. in the United Kingdom will develop a small set of applications for smart phone users in developing countries to put them in control of providing anonymous data on their mobile phone use in near real-time to aid analysis and research by donors and governments. The applications will be able to record digital financial transactions and other phone-based activities such as content browsing to provide additional context and thereby enrich the data. They will develop the software for testing on a panel of users in Kenya, and collect and analyze the data.

Enabling a Harmonized Merchant Experience in Uganda

Ken KinyuaKopo Kopo, Inc.Spokane, Washington, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mobile Money
1 Nov 2015

Ken Kinyua of Kopo Kopo Inc. in the U.S. has developed a software platform that gives particularly lower-income merchants in Uganda the possibility to receive every type of mobile money service on the market by registering with only one bank. This will promote the use of mobile money, which will also benefit the banks and mobile network operators, and both simplify and secure transactions for both the merchants and the consumers. They have licensed their software to a partner bank and will support implementation and uptake by providing personnel to establish the necessary services and expertise, and by advertising the facility to prospective merchants.

A Rapid Field Test for Detecting Infected Mosquitoes

Joanne MacdonaldUniversity of the Sunshine CoastSippy Downs, Queensland, Australia
Grand Challenges Explorations
Mosquito Control
1 Nov 2015

Joanne Macdonald from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia will develop a simple diagnostic test that can be used in the field to rapidly identify mosquitoes infected with pathogens such as the malaria parasite and dengue virus. Traditional methods require costly equipment and a laboratory setting. The test combines recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) with a lateral flow strip and can detect DNA from multiple pathogens in parallel, which will reduce costs. They will first perform a proof-of-concept study using laboratory-infected mosquitoes to evaluate the test and develop smart-phone software to translate the results. They will then perform field trials in Cairns to evaluate if their test can detect single infected mosquitoes placed in field traps containing uninfected insects.

Real-Time Data on Customer Experiences

Ernest MakotsiWayo Company LtdNairobi, Kenya
Grand Challenges Explorations
Financial Services Data
1 Nov 2015

Ernest Makotsi of Wayo Company Ltd. in Kenya will develop a mechanism for customers to provide immediate feedback on their retail experiences in Nairobi using mobile phones. Real-time feedback is thought to be more attractive for users and more valuable for providers, and having a mobile phone interface means feedback can be provided and analyzed from any location. They have developed the program, and will set up the technology in regional retail shops that provide digital financial services and advertise the event to promote customer participation. The data can be used by retailers to improve their customer services, and be sold to interested parties.

Acoustic Tracking of Mosquito Swarms for Vector Control

Szabolcs MarkaColumbia University - SPANew York, New York, United States
Grand Challenges Explorations
Malaria Transmission
1 Nov 2015

Szabolcs Marka of Columbia University in the U.S. will develop acoustic software to locate mosquito swarms by their sound, thereby allowing elimination of thousands of breeding vector mosquitos that can cause diseases such as malaria. They have already demonstrated that they can acoustically detect a single distant mosquito in a noisy laboratory setting. They will further develop acoustic locator hardware and sensors targeting the common malaria mosquito Anopheles and field-test its performance in locating swarms from several tens of meters. By studying the acoustics of single mosquitoes as well as of swarms, it could be possible to track the behavior of individuals and to artificially induce swarm formation, to further support disease control efforts.

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