Ella Foundation Receives $100K Grand Challenges Explorations Grant to Check-mate Polio & block the

May 10, 2012 - PRLog -- Genome Valley, Hyderabad, India, May 10, 2012: – Ella Foundation announced today that it has won US$ 100K Grand Challenges Explorations Grant, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This Grant will help Ella Foundation pursue development of a highly ‘disabled’ virus to ‘check-mate’ polio after the phasing out of oral poliovirus (OPV) vaccine, as part of an innovative global health research project.

This project to “checkmate the polio virus” during and after the eradication of poliomyelitis could result in a live polio vaccine that cannot perpetuate. Such a vaccine could carry the beneficial effects of an oral polio vaccine namely safety, efficacy, ease of manufacture, distribution and administration along with the safety profile of an injectable polio vaccine by eliminating vaccine derived polio virus (VDPV).

Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. Ella Foundation’s project is one of over 100 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 8 grants announced today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Grand Challenges Explorations encourages individuals worldwide to expand the pipeline of ideas where creative, unorthodox thinking is most urgently needed,” said Chris Wilson, director of Global Health Discovery and Translational Sciences at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We’re excited to provide additional funding for select grantees so that they can continue to advance their idea towards global impact.”
Grand Challenges Explorations funds scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges.

To receive funding, Ella Foundation and other Grand Challenges Explorations Round 8 winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of five critical global heath and development topic areas that included agriculture development, immunization and nutrition.