The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The grant will support an innovative global health research project conducted by James Tsuruta, PhD, and Paul Dayton, PhD, titled "Ultrasound as a long-term, reversible contraceptive."
Tsuruta is an assistant professor in the Laboratories for Reproductive Biology in UNC's Department of Pediatrics. Dayton is associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, which is jointly housed at UNC and N.C. State University.
Tsuruta and Dayton's project is one of 78 grants announced by the Gates Foundation in the fourth funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to help scientists around the world explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve health in developing countries. The grants were provided to scientists in 18 countries on six continents.
To receive funding, Tsuruta and Dayton showed in a two-page application how their idea falls outside current scientific paradigms and might lead to significant advances in global health. The initiative is highly competitive, receiving almost 2,700 proposals in this round.
"Our long-term goal is to use ultrasound from therapeutic instruments that are commonly found in sports medicine or physical therapy clinics as an inexpensive, long-term, reversible male contraceptive suitable for use in developing to first world countries," said Tsuruta.