March 10, 2008 | The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has issued a call for proposals for its Grand Challenges program. Proposals will be accepted from March 31 to May 30, 2008, and applicants must register their intent to submit a proposal by May 15.
Launched in 2003, the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative is a $100 million program that aims “to spur the kind of unconventional scientific thinking that is critical to solving serious global health problems. We want to encourage researchers around the world to take risks on creative, unorthodox approaches that could ultimately lead to big breakthroughs in health,” said Carol A. Dahl, director, global health discovery, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a statement. Thus far, the program has awarded 43 grants to scientific teams.
Proposals for this round of funding are being solicited on the following four topics:
- * Creating new ways to protect against infectious diseases
- * Creating drugs or delivery systems that limit the emergence of resistance
- * Creating new ways to prevent or cure HIV infection
- * Exploring the basis for latency in TB
Initial grants will be $100,000 each, and projects showing success will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of $1 million or more. The first grants are expected to be announced by fall 2008. Full descriptions of the topics and application instructions are available at www.gcgh.org/explorations.