Grand Challenges Canada: Request for Proposals on Point-of-Care Diagnostics:
Letters of Intent are due on July 12, 2010

 

Grand Challenges Canada announces an important new research funding opportunity in global health. This request for proposal (RFP), addressing the first in a series of Grand Challenges, is targeted exclusively at researchers in low- and middle-income countries. The aim is to create innovative new components for a point-of-care (POC) diagnostics platform for use in low resource settings. The advanced platform, among other features, will be easy to use, extremely low cost, multiplexed, and be capable of defining the stage of development of the disease.

Grand Challenges Canada will fund proposals to advance the state of the art in component technologies focused on the following topic areas:
1) sample collection, concentration, and preparation;
2) amplification and detection technologies;
3) readoutand signal transduction;
4) enabling technologies for diagnostics;
5) implementation research for point-of-care diagnostics.

Assuming a sufficient number of proposals of sufficient merit, this RFP is expected to fund between 10-20 grants of varying amounts for an aggregate total cost of up to $12 million Canadian over three years.
Applicant organizations must be individual non-profit organizations or for-profit companies. The Principal Investigator must be from a low- or middle-income country. Partnerships with Canadian scientists are encouraged but not required.

Grand Challenges Canada is a unique and independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of people in developing countries by integrating scientific, technological, business and social innovation. Grand Challenges Canada works with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and other global health foundations and organizations to find sustainable long-term solutions to the most pressing health challenges. Grand Challenges Canada is hosted at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health.

Letters of Intent are due on July 12, 2010.

For further details and instructions to apply, see
http://www.grandchallenges.ca

Please submit queries to info@grandchallenges.ca
<info@grandchallenges.ca>