On October 20, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that 76 grants of $100,000 each will go to unconventional research approaches to global health issues such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases, The Associated Press reports.

According to the article, the foundation distributed these five-year grants, which span 16 countries, to encourage greater innovation among health researchers. One recipient, a University of California in Los Angeles doctoral candidate, is developing a chewing gum that will detect malaria biomarkers in saliva. Another researcher, from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, will use this funding to test a chocolate “medicine” to help children develop a lifetime resistance to malaria.