Caltech Faculty Receive Gates Foundation Grants for Global Health Initiatives

On December 15, the Gates Foundation and Grand Challenge Canada announced over $31 million in new grants to help advance healthcare in the developing world. James Heath, Gilloon Professor and professor of chemistry, and Axel Scherer, Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, and Physics, were among the 12 grant recipients who will be funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Caltech was the only organization to receive more than one award.  

The grants are part of the Point-of-Care Diagnostics (POC Dx) Initiative, which aims to create high-quality, low-cost diagnostic platforms to improve the quality and efficacy of healthcare in the world's poorest countries. POC Dx is the 14th program of the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, launched in 2003 to create new healthcare tools across a range of disciplines.   

"New and improved diagnostics to use at the point of care can help health workers around the world save countless lives," said Chris Wilson, director of global health discovery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a press release. "Our hope is that these bold ideas lead to affordable, easy-to-use tools that can rapidly diagnose diseases, trigger timelier treatment and thereby reduce death, disability and transmission of infections in resource-poor communities."

Heath was awarded a grant to develop HIV diagnostic tools that use synthetically created peptides instead of antibodies in diagnostic assays. Their chemical structure would allow them to be transported, stored, and used more easily than antibodies. Scherer will work with collaborators at Dartmouth to develop a prototype technology to detect a wide range of pathogens that is low-cost, low-power, and easy to use.

For more information on the Grand Challenges in Global Health program, visit the program's website.