New innovative research projects aiming to prevent premature birth have been announced by the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS), an initiative of Seattle Children's.

The projects are funded through the Preventing Preterm Birth initiative, part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health. The initiative seeks to discover biological mechanisms that lead to preterm birth and develop innovative strategies for prevention, with particular focus on solutions relevant to low- and middle-income countries, where 99% of the world's infant deaths occur.