Gates Foundation - Grand Challenges: Achieving Healthy Growth - Letter of Inquiry

To elucidate new pathways or mechanisms that will directly inform the development of interventions for the prevention of impaired growth, i.e. stunting and wasting, during the first 1,000 days following conception in the developing world. Ultimately we aim to identify simpler, less costly, and more effective interventions delivered before conception, during pregnancy, or in the first two years of life. To meet this goal, approaches should address the underlying biological mechanisms that lead to these adverse developmental outcomes focusing specifically on either or both infection and nutrition (and certain environmental exposures). Collaboration: The aim of this initiative is to create a consortium of individually funded projects that will benefit from information sharing activities among its members. Successful proposals should address a hypothesis that lies along a critical path to practical, affordable, and scalable interventions. While these studies will ultimately be centered on analysis of samples from human cohorts, studies evaluating hypotheses first in laboratory or animal models are also encouraged as part of the collaboration.
Funding: $2,000,000 for up to 4 years. The Foundation will fund up to $15M for this program.
www.grandchallenges.org/GrantOpportunities/Pages/healthygrowth.aspx
www.grandchallenges.org/GCGHDocs/Healthy_Growth_Rules_and_Guidelines.pdf