Gates Foundation: Grand Challenges Exploration Round #8

The Gates Foundation released the topics for its newest call for applications:
http://www.grandchallenges.org/Explorations/Pages/TopicsOverview.aspx
There are 5 topics, although 2 are particularly interesting for TropMed:


1.)Design New Approaches to Optimize Immunization Systems
This topic aims to generate novel approaches to optimizing the performance of immunization logistics and supply systems in low-resource settings. Applicants are encouraged to re-examine the systems trusted with delivering vaccines and design innovative solutions to optimize the performance of these systems, both today and in the future. We seek proposals that are responsive to the topic that are daring in premise and clearly different from the approaches currently under investigation or employed. The solutions submitted to this topic must be focused on the operational aspects of immunization systems in countries, and must have the potential to be scaled up or reproduced in multiple settings.
http://www.grandchallenges.org/ImproveVaccines/Topics/Pages/OptimizeImmunizationSystemsRound8.aspx


2.) Explore Nutrition for Healthy Growth of Infants and Children
The goal of this topic is to solicit new scientific understanding and new science-based preventative and therapeutic approaches to improve nutrition and promote the healthy growth and development of infants and young children. We strongly encourage investigating the mechanisms of action of nutritional deficiencies and interventions, since this will provide the basis for new strategies to promote healthy growth and will facilitate developing tests to measure nutritional status and to measure treatment outcomes, including discriminating responders from non-responders in population studies.
http://www.grandchallenges.org/ImproveNutrition/Topics/Pages/NutritionforInfantsandChildrenRound8.aspx

The deadline for all responses to the Grand Challenges Exploration Round #8 are 17 November 2011.

NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01)

The Research Project Grant (R01) is an award made to an institution/organization to support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in areas representing the specific interests and competencies of the investigator(s). The R01 research plan proposed by the applicant institution/organization must be related to the stated program interests of one or more of the NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) based on descriptions of their programs (contact the Faculty of Tropical Medicine Office of Research Services for assistance identifying which IC to apply to).


For more information, see:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-11-260.html


The funding is for 3-5 years and the budget depends on the scope of the project.


The next deadline is 5 October 2011.  There are regular deadlines every February, October, and June

NIH Research to Advance Vaccine Safety (R01 or R21)

The grant supports research that will contribute to the overall understanding of vaccine safety. This research opportunity invites studies that address scientific areas potentially relevant to vaccine safety such as: 
1) physiological and immunological responses to vaccines and vaccine components,
2) how genetic variations affect immune/physiological responses that may impact vaccine safety, 
3) identification of risk factors and biological markers that may be used to assess whether there is a relationship between certain diseases or disorders and licensed vaccines, or 
4) the application of genomic/molecular technologies to improve knowledge of vaccine safety


This grant is available in both the R01 and R21 scheme.  See more information here:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-08-256.html (R01)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-08-257.html (R21)
R01 = more money, but requires extensive preliminary research and expertise
R21 = less money, more exploratory and "risky" research


The deadline for this application is 8 January 2012.  The R01 is for up to 5 years of funding, with no formal budget limit.  The R21 is worth $275,000 over 2 years.