NEW YORK – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded more than 150 new grants in April and May, several of which are related to omics and diagnostic projects. Following is a selection of notable grants:
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology was awarded approximately $2.2 million over 29 months "To develop low-cost breath-based diagnostics for diagnosing infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries."
- The US Food and Drug Administration was awarded approximately $1.9 million over 36 months for a project also titled "To develop low-cost breath-based diagnostics for diagnosing infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries."
- Detect-Ion of Tampa, Florida, was awarded approximately $1.1 million over 16 months "To develop a portable mass spectrometer at an affordable price to diagnose infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries."
- The Wellcome Sanger Institute of Hinxton, UK, was awarded approximately $5 million over 35 months "To provide training and technical support in whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis to the African Centre for Vector Genomics and other malaria mosquito researchers."
- The Wellcome Sanger Institute was also awarded $114,087 over 11 months "To create a list of conserved Plasmodium proteins that could be used to build the peptide library for T cell stimulation and/or target identification for multiple partners in malaria elimination."
- The Wellcome Sanger Institute was also awarded $73,799 over 36 months "To build a malaria molecular surveillance capacity in Cameroon using nanopore sequencing."
- The Biotechnology Centre of the University of Yaounde 1 was awarded $522,026 over 36 months for a project also titled "To build a malaria molecular surveillance capacity in Cameroon using nanopore sequencing."
- The Infectious Diseases Research Collaboration of Kampala, Uganda, was awarded approximately $1.8 million over 36 months "To conduct malaria molecular surveillance in refugees in Uganda to inform prevention and treatment strategies in this vulnerable population."
- The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation of Washington, D.C., was awarded $417,816 over 19 months "To evaluate advanced HIV disease diagnostic methods in Tanzania."
- The University of California, Irvine was awarded $191,059 over 13 months "To generate data on the accuracy and acceptability of provider-supervised, self-collected tongue swabs for TB diagnosis."
- The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene of Arlington, Virigina, was awarded $179,897 over 60 months "To support the Dominic Kwiatkowski Fellowship annual award to low- or middle-income country researchers to advance research on malaria and genomic epidemiology."