London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Steve Lindsay, Professor of Public Health Entomology, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled Turning Latrines Into Fly Traps.

Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) funds scientists and researchers worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mould in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. Prof Lindsay’s project is one of over 85 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 6 grants announced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“GCE winners are expanding the pipeline of ideas for serious global health and development challenges where creative thinking is most urgently needed. These grants are meant to spur on new discoveries that could ultimately save millions of lives,” said Chris Wilson, director of Global Health Discovery at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To receive funding, Prof Lindsay and other Grand Challenges Explorations Round 6 winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of five critical global heath and development topic areas: polio eradication, HIV, sanitation and family health technologies, and mobile health. Applications for the current open round, Grand Challenges Explorations Round 7, will be accepted until May 19, 2011.

Prof Lindsay plans to use the grant to develop an innovative approach to reducing diarrhoeal disease.

Working with his architecture graduate son Tom, he plans to turn latrines into fly traps in Gambia, West Africa, and conduct field research with a view to helping reduce the impact of disease-spreading flies in villages.

Prof Lindsay said: “It’s very exciting to win this award and we are extremely grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“We are looking forward to getting started on the work, which we hope will make a difference to people’s health. It could make a huge impact because so many people in Africa use latrines.”