Grand Challenges Explorations:

1. Grand Challenges Explorations:

2. Agenda • Overview of the Foundation & the GCE Program • Specific Topics for this Round • How Proposals are Reviewed • Preparing a Competitive Proposal • Is Michigan Finding Success in GCE competition? • Next Steps

3. Gates Foundation Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. 1200 Employees $40.2 Billion Endowment $28.3 Billion in Grants since its Inception $3.4 Billion in Grants in 2012 alone

4. Priority Areas in Global Health • The Global Health Program harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in poor countries • Global Health Program is focused on developing ways to fight and prevent Infectious Diseases with particular focus on • Discovery and Translational Science • Enetric and Diarrheal Diseases • HIV/AIDS • Malaria • Pneumonia • Tuberculosis • Neglected Infectious Disease

5. Priority Areas in Global Development • Many of the foundation’s Global Development Priorities in developing countries directly engage health. • Agricultural Development • Emergency Response • Family Planning • Financial Services for the Poor • Global Libraries • Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health • Nutrition • Polio • Vaccine Delivery • Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

6. Gates Data University of Michigan $6.3 Million – U-M’s largest grant 10 – Number of Grand Challenges grants at U-M 6th – U-M’s rank among by number of Grand Challenges awards $27.2 Million – Total Gates funding at U-M Global Funding $892 Million – Global Health funding portfolio in 2012 $1.6 Billion – Global Development funding portfolio in 2012 Other Universities – (Just a small sampling) $28 Million – Duke University for HIV vaccine research (2011) $25 Million – University of Washington to build evidence for support for aid campaigns (2013) $25 Million – University of Illinois for work on crop yields in developing countries (2012) $24 Million – Johns Hopkins for work in family planning (2012) $23 Million – Notre Dame for bug spray (2013)

7. Strategic AnalysisExplorations Grants from Gates

8. Looking for creative ideas that can potentially transform global health • Competition is run every 6 months • Topics can change every round • Fit the goals and disease priorities of the Grand Challenges in Global Health. • Where new thinking is needed to overcome today’s roadblocks • Can be phased • Must envision impact on Gates priorities and strategies • Note: Global Health ≠ USA. Needs to be explicit

9. The Foundation’s focus remains on identifying transformational solutions that make a difference for health in the developing world. Projects must be oriented in practical ways to solving health problems for a set of core diseases of great interest to the Gates Foundation for people who live in extreme poverty.  

10. Applications Application Information DEADLINE: May 6, 2014 at 11:30 AM Pacific Time For Proposal Support: martinms@umich.edu – Maureen Martin, Executive Director, Foundation Relations lartigue@umich.edu – Donna Lartigue, Associate Director, Foundation Relations sutkowi@umich.edu – Joseph Sutkowi, Assistant Director, Foundation Relations Visit: foundations.umich.edu

11. Round 13 Topics • Explore New Ways to Measure Fetal and Infant Brain Development (new) • New Ways of Working Together: Integrating Community-Based Interventions (new) • Inciting Healthy Behaviors: nudge disrupt, leapfrog, reach • New Enabling Tools and Models Supporting Development of Interventions for EnetricDysfunction • Innovations in Feedback & Accountability Systems for Agricultural Development

12. Topic: New Ways of Working Together: Integrating Community-Based Interventions Aims to leverage existing community-wide mass drug administration (MDA) platforms for one or more of the five Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) drug distribution efforts and integrate it with another community-valued or needed health intervention or agricultural service with a goal of increasing efficiency or impact. Diseases: Lymphatic Filiariasis, Onchocerciasis, Trachoma, Schistosomiasis, and Soil Transmitted Helminthes Priorities: • Integrate MDA NTD with Intensive Disease Management (five diseases) • Integrate MDA NTDs with another NTD • Integrate MDA NTDs with another community-valued or needed health intervention • Bring MDA to a new population • Integrate NTD MDA with malaria eradication efforts Link to RFP

13. Topic: Explore New Ways to Measure Fetal and Infant Brain Development Seeks new approaches for measuring brain function and development, with a focus on tests that are simple, reliable, non-invasive, objective, universally applicable, and include those appropriate for fetal life, newborns, and early infancy. Purposes of Tests: • Monitor existing and new health interventions • Establish standard curves of brain function-for-age • Enable early detection of deviation from healthy development Also seeking new approaches for accurately measuring gestational age, focusing on simple, reliable, non-invasive, universally applicable tests that can be applied either to pregnant women or to the newborn or infant. Successful proposals will: • Build on the rapidly growing knowledge of early development, brain development, and measurement tools such as imaging technologies • Are “off the beaten track” and daring in promise, that clearly differentiate from current approaches • Have a testable hypothesis, include an evaluation plan, and yield interpretable and unambiguous data Link to RFP

14. Topic: Inciting Healthy Behaviors: nudge, disrupt, leapfrog, reach • Solutions may include but are not limited to: education, campaigns, behavioral ‘nudges’, new support and incentive systems for access to care and treatment, and models and tools to understand health-seeking behaviors, constraints, and drivers. We seek solutions that are interactive, contextual, scale-able, and relevant to health systems strengthening. • We’re specifically interested in work targeting: reproductive health, maternal, neonatal, and child health, nutrition, HIV, TB, polio, and vaccine delivery.  • Priority will be given to projects that address current inequities in health seeking behaviors, and prioritize marginalized populations. Link to RFPAwarded Grants

15. Topic: Novel Enabling Tools and Models Supporting Development of Interventions for Enteric Dysfunction Given the broad impact of acute secretory diarrhea (ASD) and environmental enteric dysfunction (ESD)on nutrition, growth, cognition, immune response, and overall health, particularly in children under five years of age, Gates is interested in developing therapeutic interventions to improve child health in the developing world by identifying agents to restore normal gut function in the target population. Host-directed therapies rather than agents that would kill the pathogen. Preclinical assays, methods, tools, and models by which potential therapeutic interventions can be identified, developed, compared, and prioritized – particularly methods which can de-risk the approach as it transitions from in vitro and/or in vivo assays into human clinical trials. Novel and innovative ideas for tools, approaches, and models to support preclinical development of new agents for ASD and EED. We particularly seek approaches which recapitulate the pathophysiology of impaired gut function as it occurs in our target population. Link to RFPAwarded Grants

16. Topic: Innovations in Feedback & Accountability Systems for Agricultural Development To build effective feedback and accountability in agricultural development programsthat enable farmer’s voices to be heard. • New practices/systems to be used throughout all project phases to increase constituent feedback and/or enable communities to hold programs accountable; • Systems to evaluate existing feedback practices used by your organization. This evaluation should provide evidence of how your organization learns from constituent feedback and shares these practices with others; • Systems that enhance your existing feedback practices, e.g. new practices to make publicly available constituent feedback at regular intervals and in transparent and easily accessible ways; and Link to RFPAwarded Grants

17. “One bold idea. That’s all it takes.” The Small Print: “That can stand out above 3,000 other applications, and capture the attention of at least one ‘champion’…”

18. Grant Opportunity • The foundation awards 80-100 proposals per round with a Phase I $100,000 grant • 40,000 proposals have been submitted, 850 selected • Successful Phase I projects can be invited to apply for a $1,000,000 Phase II grant • 51 Phase II grants have been awarded • The program has totaled roughly $136 Million

19. The Review Process

20. The Review Process • Gates receives approximately 3,000 applications each round and funds 80-100. Of those funded 50% had submitted before (idea is refined). • Each reviewer reads approximately 300 proposals. • Reviewers read through each proposal at most 10 minutes – you have to capture their attention early on to get on their short list. • It can only take one of several readers championing your proposal to achieve funding.

21. Reviewer instructions • Topic Responsiveness – • Does the proposal address the problems described in the topic? (types of research and topics not to be funded are listed in each topic description) • Innovative Approach – • Does the idea offer an unconventional or creative approach to the problem outlined in the topic? • Does it demonstrate application of a new or pioneering approach? • Does the proposal describe how the project varies from current approaches, offers new premises or hypotheses to test, and • Does it provide a rational basis for expecting success?

22. Writing your proposal All proposals must • have a testable hypothesis, • include an associated plan for how the idea would be tested or validated, and • yield interpretable and unambiguous data in Phase I, in order to be considered for Phase II funding. Successful proposals are • "off the beaten track" • daring in premise • clearly differentiated from approaches currently being developed or employed.  

23. Writing your Proposal Technologies or approaches should • enhance uptake, acceptability and/or provide for sustained use (e.g. culture, affordability, illiteracy) • enable or provide for low-cost solutions (scalable) • promote effective delivery and administration of new solutions and • ensure or enhance safety. 

24. The “Dos”

25. The “Don’ts”

26. What we’ve seen work – 5 tips 1. Stressing practicality and adoptability • Demonstrating an understanding of the situation in which the product/discovery/method will be employed: “low-cost” “culturally-appropriate”

27. What we’ve seen work – 5 tips 2. Very clearly differentiating work from current directions in the field • “The work here turns this conventional view on its head by proposing that specific interactions with specific ….” • “Instead of detecting the spectrum of molecular vibrations, … we extend our expertise to focus on…, a novel technique that has not been investigated before …” • “Existing initiatives have not been sufficient to revolutionize vaccine development …” • “Most existing antivirals…” “Current approaches…” “Conventional diagnosis of malaria…”

28. What we’ve seen work – 5 tips 3. Boldstatements about project aims • “To truly realize revolutionary advances in vaccines that protect developing world populations…” • “My unconventional idea of training international leaders in infectious disease… could prove a wise investment in the scientific enterprise by building capacity in human capital, and by complementing conventional approaches to global health challenges”

29. What we’ve seen work – 5 tips 4. Scientific language without letting the reader get lost in the details • “We propose a mutable DNA vaccine that will trigger immune responses directed against antigenic variants” • “two proteins can be combined to produce a Tat-RevM10 fusion protein that will be taken up by cells and activate HIV expression, but not produce infectious virus.”

30. What we’ve seen work – 5 tips 5. Why this PI/team (you) is the right one to do this work • “A major advantage of this study proposal is the expertise of the IB study team with respect to vaccine development and financing issues” • “the PI is an expert in medical device design for resource-limited settings” • “This multidisciplinary effort combines the experience of two investigators providing expertise in both the immunology of HIV during latency and the development of new anti-HIV treatments.”

31. Can I be successful? Absolutely! HosagraharJagadish, EECS/CSE – Aligning Data Across Incompatible Geographical Units Gabriel Nuñez, Pathology – Targeting Intimin for Removal of EnteropathogenicE.Coli Erdogan Gulari, Chemical Engineering – Antimicrobial Peptides against Mycobacteria Craig Harris, Environmental Health Sciences – Models of Embryonic Histiotrophic Nutrition in Organogenesis Steven King, Internal Medicine – Turning HIV Proteins to Cure Infection Kathy Sienko, Mechanical Engineering – Circumcision Tool For Traditional Ceremonies In Africa Wei Lu, Mechanical Engineering – Spectrum-Based Low-Cost Diagnostics Alice Telesnitsky, Microbiology and Immunology – A Lexicon of HIV-RNA Interactions Matthew Davis, Pediatrics-Ambulatory Care Program – Innovation Bridge: Linking Biotech Breakthroughs to Emerging Vaccine Manufacturers Marilia Cascalho, General Surgery – A Mutable Vaccine for HIV

32. Next Steps • Review the Grand Challenges Explorations site • Review the Application instructions • Get feedback from colleagues and Foundation Relations Staff (optional, but recommended) martinms@umich.edu– Maureen Martin, Executive Director, Foundation Relations lartigue@umich.edu – Donna Lartigue, Associate Director, Foundation Relations (Joint appointment with SPH) sutkowi@umich.edu – Joseph Sutkowi, Assistant Director, Foundation Relations moburns@umich.edu – Maureen Burns, Assistant Director, Foundation and Government Relations, College of Engineering 4. Apply (do connect with ORSP)