Grand Challenges Canada, Gates Foundation announce grants for innovative Global Health projects

"Grand Challenges Canada [on Thursday] announced 15 grants valued in total at more than $1.5 million awarded to some of Canada's most creative innovators from across the country in support of their work to improve global health conditions," according to a press release from the Sandra Rotman Centre for Global Health, which hosts Grand Challenges (2/9). "The grants are meant to fund ideas such as a simply designed, inexpensive prosthetic leg and a test for pneumonia that can be done on a cellphone in poor countries with few resources," CBC News notes (Dakin, 2/9). The press release lists the grantees, briefly describes their innovations and provides a link to access two-minute videos created by each grantee to explain his or her proposal (2/9).

In related news, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday "announced $7.7 million in funding for 10 new grants to identify biomarkers for diagnosing tuberculosis (TB) in low-resource settings," according to a Gates Foundation press release. The new grant program, Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis, which is part of the Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health (GCGH) initiative, "supports innovative research into TB biomarkers to facilitate the development of a low-cost, simple-to-use tool that can quickly and accurately diagnose TB in developing countries," the press release states (2/9).