Deadline: 9 November 2016
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its funding partners in the Grand Challenges family of grant programs are inviting innovators to apply for its Grand Challenges Explorations., in order to foster early-stage discovery research to expand the pipeline of ideas for solving our greatest global health and development challenges.
The goal of this call is to develop broadly applicable approaches that can be used to accelerate development of therapeutic interventions, rather than to support the development of specific interventions themselves.
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.
Launched in 2008 with an initial $100 million commitment from the foundation, Grand Challenges Explorations grants have already been awarded to more than 1200 researchers in more than 65 countries. This call is soliciting new tools and technologies that have potential
- To overcome the technical barriers in working with Cryptosporidium that have historically hampered progress
- To improve our ability to develop and translate active compounds into effective therapies for treatment of pediatric cryptosporidiosis.
Award Information
Awards of $100,000 USD are made in Phase I. Phase I awardees have one opportunity to apply for a follow-on Phase II award of up to $1,000,000 USD.
Focus Priorities
- Development of novel moderate- to high-throughput screening approaches that target different life-stages of the parasite or that recapitulate aspects of the realistic in vivo environment of the parasite (e.g. gut-on-a-chip or other like technologies);
- New methods for the identification and validation of drug targets in Cryptosporidium,as well as methods for interrogating validated targets within the context of whole cell phenotypic assays (e.g. target-based reporter assays);
- Novel methods for genetic manipulation of the Cryptosporidium genome, particularly those that allow regulated gene expression;
- Systematic approaches to explore opportunities for host-directed therapies, based on a rational understanding of parasite metabolism and parasite/host interactions;
- Validation of small animal disease models that are more tractable than the calf or gnotobiotic piglet, but which model human infection and disease (particularly valuable if immunocompetent and/or supportive of C. hominis infection);
- Assessment of biomarkers with potential to monitor clinical drug efficacy, specifically with regard to parasite elimination;
- Pre-clinical in vitro, in vivo, or in silico models to assess the role of co-infection, the microbiome, and gut dysfunction on drug efficacy;
- Novel methods to establish PK/PD relationships for anti-cryptosporidial drugs in the context of gut location of pathogen infection and disease pathology.
Eligibility Criteria
- GCE is open to both foreign and domestic organizations, including non-profit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies and academic institutions.
- Upon registration, applicants must provide information about the tax status of their organization as different terms and conditions may apply. One should organization’s tax status with the appropriate person or group within organization such as grants or contracts department, finance, or office of sponsored research.
How to Apply
Applicants must submit the downloadable application form, available on the website.
For more information, please visit Grand Challenges Explorations.