The Gates Foundation is part of the Grand Challenges partnership network. Visit <a href="https://www.grandchallenges.org" target="_blank">www.grandchallenges.org</a> to view the map of awarded grants across this network and grant opportunities from partners.

The Gates Foundation announced grants under the Grand Challenges Initiative. The grants - spread across six Challenges. - were awarded to more than 59 primary investigators in more than 20 different countries.

Grand Challenges Initiatives Highlights - October 2023

Grand Challenges Initiatives Highlights - December 2025

2025 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting Call-to-Action

Brandon DeKosky of the Massachusetts General Hospital, with Carole Long of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, both in the U.S., will develop a high-throughput, microfluidic screening platform to identify antibodies active against blood-stage malaria parasites.

High-Throughput Growth Inhibition Assays for Antimalarial Protein Drugs

Grand Challenges

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Accelerating Innovations to Address Heavy Menstrual Bleeding in Women in Low-Resource Settings

Sweta Kanavaje of the Myna Mahila Foundation in India will evaluate the effectiveness of the Myna Bolo chatbot in providing confidential, culturally sensitive, and medically accurate guidance on heavy menstrual bleeding to women in poor urban communities in Mumbai.

Evaluating the Impact of an AI-Powered Chatbot for Heavy Menstrual Bleeding and Sexual and Reproductive Health for Women in India

Enhancing HIV and TB Diagnosis: Adjunct Technologies for Sample Collection and Processing

Sam Nugen of Cornell University in the U.S. will develop a bacteriophage-based system for the rapid concentration and lysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

Mycobacteriophagemids: A Synthetic Biology Approach to Rapid and Low-Cost Mycobacterium tuberculosis Concentration and Lysis

Innovative Data and Modeling Approaches to Measure Women's Health

Lilian Okeke of the African Field Epidemiology Network in Uganda will develop a health index as a comprehensive, integrated measure of women's health in Nigeria.

Leveraging the Women's Health Equity Index (WHEI) to Transform Women's Health Measurement in Nigeria

Cliveland Ogallo of the Center for Public Health and Development (CPHD) with Anne-Beatrice Kihara of the University of Nairobi, both in Kenya, will assess the impact of heavy menstrual bleeding on the health and well-being of adolescent girls in an underserved community in Kenya.

Exploring Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Among Adolescent Girls in Informal Settlements in Nairobi Kenya

Irene Njuguna of Emory University in the U.S. will determine the prevalence and impact of heavy menstrual bleeding in adolescent girls and young women in a variety of community settings in Kenya, as well as the barriers to treatment delivery and uptake.

Addressing Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Among Adolescent and Young Women in Kenya

Jianghong Rao of Stanford University in the U.S. will develop a magnet-based system for capturing and concentrating the TB bacterium from sputum biosamples to facilitate TB diagnosis.

Magnetic Capturing Technique for Sputum Sample Processing

Reducing the Burden of Preeclampsia

Alfredo Rubio of Monod Bio, Inc. in the U.S. will develop an affordable point-of-care diagnostic platform for prediction and detection of preeclampsia early in pregnancy.

Affordable Preeclampsia Diagnostic Powered by Computational Protein Design

Sarah Leeber of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, with Marie Josiane Kenfack of the Center for Research on Emerging and Reemerging Diseases (CREMER) in Cameroon, will add DNA sequencing analysis of the vaginal microbiota as a component for a set of clinical trials of menstrual hygiene products in Belgium, Switzerland, Cameroon, and Peru.

ISILUNA: Global Citizen Science Impact on Menstrual Products on the Vaginal Microbiome

Nadia Diamond-Smith of the University of California San Francisco in the U.S. will characterize the prevalence and impact of heavy menstrual bleeding as well as treatment preferences in a cohort of women in the state of Rajasthan in India.

Heavy Menstrual Bleeding Across the Lifecourse in India and a Discrete Choice Experiment

David Erickson of Cornell University in the U.S. will develop a device for heat inactivation and mechanical lysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

MAGNILyser: Next-Generation TB Sample Preparation Through Inductive Heating and Mechanical Lysis

Katherine Rucinski of Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. will develop a platform for understanding the determinants of women’s heath inequities in South Africa and for modeling the effects of health interventions.

Epidemiologic Modeling to Advance Women's Health and Wellbeing in South Africa

Manel Mendoza of The Fetal Medicine Foundation in the United Kingdom will validate the safety and efficacy of giving aspirin prophylaxis to 30% of pregnant women at high risk of preeclampsia and discontinuing treatment before the end of pregnancy.

Screening for Preeclampsia in Africa: Feasibility, Adaptation, and Implementation

Maneesha Inamdar of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India will develop a standardized organoid model of the human endometrium, together with a reproducible and scalable process for generating these organoids.

Develop Functional Assays for the Endometrium from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Suman Chakraborty of the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in India will develop a membrane filtration system for Mycobacterium tuberculosis lysis and DNA purification from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

Nanomaterial-Integrated Microfluidic Membrane for Enhanced Lysis in Point-of-Care TB Diagnostics

Jennifer McIntosh of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc. in the U.S. will test the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant MitoQ as a treatment for preeclampsia.

MitoQ to Ameliorate Vascular Function in Preeclampsia

Ianessa Morantte of Prolific Machines Inc. in the U.S. with Arif Jetha of Radiant Biotherapeutics Inc. in Canada will develop a biomanufacturing system to enhance production of therapeutic broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) against HIV.

Scaling HIV Multabody Production with Light-Regulated Expression

John Metcalfe of the University of California San Francisco in the U.S. will improve the turboLysis device for mechanical lysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from patient samples to enhance TB diagnosis.

TurboLysis: A Low-Cost, Small-Footprint Device for Efficient Mycobacterium tuberculosis Cell Lysis

Young Kim of Purdue University in the U.S. will develop a diagnostic platform for prediction and detection of preeclampsia early in pregnancy.

mHealth Conjunctiva Photography for Early Preeclampsia Risk-Stratification

Jeffrey Burke of Prompt Diagnostics, Inc. in the U.S. will develop a low-cost, automated platform integrating blood sample input, plasma separation, and HIV RNA extraction for HIV diagnostic testing.&nbsp;

Prompt HIV Point-of-Care Sample Preparation

Rohini Nair of Gujarat Biotechnology University in India will explore the cellular heterogeneity and molecular pathways associated with heavy menstrual bleeding to better understand the condition, using single-cell transcriptional profiling of the endometrium in patients.

Deciphering Cellular Heterogeneity in Endometrium Biopsies from Women with Heavy Menstrual Bleeding

Meng Sun of the Zymeron Corporation in the U.S. will develop a small, handheld, low-cost device for rapid plasma separation from whole blood for HIV diagnostic testing.

A Plasma Separator Enabling HIV Viral Load Tests in Decentralized Settings

Kolawole Akinjiola of mDoc Healthcare in Nigeria will build on mDoc’s digital health platform for maternal self-care to pilot test a wearable, vital signs monitor for real-time monitoring of preeclampsia risk during pregnancy.

m-Track: Maternal Tracking and Risk Analysis for Preeclampsia via Digital Wearables

Genome Structure-Based Banana Breeding in Southeast Asia

Sasivimon Swangpol of Mahidol University in Thailand will collect genetic resources from two banana progenitor species (Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana) in Thailand and Laos, characterize their genotypes and associated phenotypes, and test and store seeds.