The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Round 7 of Grand Challenges Explorations, its US$100 million grant initiative to encourage innovation in global health research. The initiative “offers scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs the opportunity to win $100,000 grants to pursue unconventional ideas that could transform health in developing countries, and focuses on research areas where creative, unorthodox thinking is most urgently needed.: The topics in this round are:
– The Poliovirus Endgame: Create Ways to Accelerate, Sustain and Monitor Eradication
– Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies
– Create Low-Cost Cell Phone-Based Solutions for Improved Uptake and Coverage of Childhood Vaccinations
– Design New Approaches to Cure HIV Infection
– Explore Nutrition for Healthy Growth of Infants and Children
– Apply Synthetic Biology to Global Health Challenges