Gates Foundation seeking proposals

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said that starting March 31, it will accept grant proposals for the first funding round of the $100 million Grand Challenges Explorations initiative. Initial grants of $100,000 each will be awarded to proposals in four topic areas: creating new ways to protect against infectious diseases, including utilizing natural or synthetic immune response; developing therapeutics or delivery systems that limit pathogen resistance; creating new ways to prevent or treat HIV infection, with an emphasis on ideas that fall outside of current research on vaccines, antiretroviral drugs and other biomedical and behavior-changing strategies; and developing ways to identify and limit latent tuberculosis infection. Grants will be awarded within three months of the May 30 submission deadline, and successful projects are eligible for additional funding of $1 million or more. The foundation expects to provide about $6 million in grants for the first funding round. ...