The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative is seeking innovative ideas for diagnostics in the developing world. $30 million in funding is available for Phase I of a new grant program to create technologies and components that can be used to assess multiple conditions and pathogens at the point-of-care in a variety of settings.

Due to the inclement weather, we have extended our application deadline for the Grand Challenges for Global Health Diagnostics RFP to Sunday February 21, 2010 11:30 PM PST

Specifically, we seek to create a new class of point-of-care (POC) diagnostics that will be easy to use, low cost and otherwise appropriate so that these new tools achieve significant impact and rapid uptake in resource-poor settings.

In the developing world, tools are not available to easily and accurately assess a person’s health status, and the risks of various illnesses and treatment options.  In addition, little information about the burden of disease is available to guide population health decisions.  This severely impacts the care that people receive. 

A solution, according to studies conducted by the Global Health Diagnostics Forum, is to move toward a common point-of-care (POC) diagnostic platform for global health.  POC diagnostics are not only intended to be used in a laboratory or clinic by a trained user.  They also need to be operated by minimally trained community health workers in limited infrastructure settings. 

The platform we envision will have the ability to assess multiple pathogens and health conditions using a set of common technical, logistical, and medical decision-making approaches.  The combination of 1) a point of decision test, and; 2) a common platform, will ultimately result in better health outcomes.