Deadline Date: April 28, 2026
The Grand Challenges Addressing Physiological Barriers to Micronutrient Absorption from Fortified Foods invites innovative approaches to understand, measure, and mitigate biological constraints that limit the impact of fortified foods on nutrition and health.
This initiative prioritizes proposals that explicitly articulate how inflammation, infection, environmental enteric dysfunction, metabolic conditions, or gut dysbiosis limit micronutrient absorption and utilization, define the target population and context where fortification effectiveness is constrained, provide a strong biological rationale with mechanistic understanding, offer innovative and testable solutions such as novel fortificant formulations, delivery approaches, adjunctive therapies, microbiome-modulating, anti-inflammatory, or gut-repair strategies, and develop or validate practical biomarkers to identify or stratify affected populations.
It also emphasizes feasibility and scalability with integration into existing fortification platforms, cost-effective designs suitable for low-resource settings, regulatory and supply chain considerations, robust measurement and evaluation plans including relevant biomarkers, equity and context relevance for populations with high burdens of infection or undernutrition, risk assessment and mitigation strategies, and a capable multidisciplinary team able to translate discovery into scalable impact.
The challenge seeks solutions that can overcome biological constraints such as hepcidin-mediated iron blockade, impaired fat-soluble vitamin absorption, and microbiome–nutrient interactions, enabling fortified foods to deliver their intended nutritional benefits effectively. Proposals may include novel fortificant formulations optimized for inflammatory states, adjunctive strategies to restore gut function, and integrated interventions that address infection, gut health, and micronutrient delivery simultaneously. All stages of development are welcome, including early-stage discovery, proof-of-concept studies, or new product ideas, provided the potential impact is clearly defined.
Funding of up to $250,000 USD per project over an 18-month grant term is available, and budgets should reflect the scope of work, including indirect costs according to the Gates Foundation policy. The initiative is open globally to nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions, with multi-stakeholder collaborations encouraged. Proposals focused solely on agricultural research, live biotherapeutics, public health data collection, policy, or marketing will not be considered.
Addressing these physiological barriers is essential to unlocking the full potential of fortification programs, improving micronutrient status, and accelerating equitable gains in nutrition and health in populations where conventional interventions have not been fully effective.
For more information, visit Gates Foundation.
