Stanford Global Health awards seed funding to nine projects

The Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health has awarded $350,000 in seed funding to nine multidisciplinary teams of investigators whose work offers a novel and interdisciplinary approach to improve the health of underserved populations worldwide.

“The main goals of our seed grant program are to encourage and support the growth of Stanford’s vibrant global health community and help early stage projects get off the ground,” said center director Michele Barry, MD.

The program has jump-started nearly 40 projects, many of which have gone on to receive follow-on funding support, since it began in 2012.

With the support of new funding partners, including the Stanford Child Health Research Institute and the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research, this year’s grants include projects that address global health challenges related to maternal and child health; allergies, asthma or other respiratory diseases; and health implications of climate change.

Following is a list of the projects that received seed funding and their lead investigators:

• “Noninvasive diagnosis of tuberculosis through detection of cell-free DNA in plasma and urine” — Niaz Banaei, MD, associate professor of pathology and of medicine.
• “Improving the humanitarian response to civilians injured on the modern battlefront” — Sherry Wren, MD, FACS, professor of surgery, and Paul Wise, MD, MPH, professor of pediatrics.
• “Mobile-izing community health workers: A randomized controlled trial in Malawi” — Pascaline Dupas, PhD, associate professor of economics.
• “Impact of a novel barrier repair therapy on the skin and gut microbiome and the prevention of atopic diseases in children in Bangladesh” — Gary Darmstadt, MD, MS, professor of pediatrics, and Natalie Fischer, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in infectious diseases.
• “Gut microbiota acquisition and maturation over the first two years of life in a cohort of rural Bangladeshi children assessed for environmental enteric dysfunction” — David Relman, MD, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology, and Elizabeth Costello, PhD, research scientist in medicine.
• “Machine learning for eye care in Nepal: Expanding access and improving care” — Robert Chang, MD, assistant professor of ophthalmology.
• “Relationship of typhoidal Salmonella in water with human typhoid fever and climate” — Jason Andrews, MD, assistant professor of medicine, and Alexander Yu, MD, MPH, clinical fellow in infectious diseases.
• “Mental health issues and violence among adolescents in the Nairobi slums: Can empowerment programs prevent or mitigate both?” — Clea Sarnquist, DrPH, MPH, senior research scholar and lecturer in pediatrics, and Michael Baiocchi, MD, assistant professor of medicine.
• “Linguistic and cultural adaptation of the Building Empowerment and Resilience Program for adolescent girls in Gujarat, India” — Jennifer Keller, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.