SAN DIEGO -- The richest man in America is helping two local professors with efforts to find new ways to improve the health of people around the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently awarded Dr. Benjamin Yu and his team of researchers at the University of California, San Diego, a $100,000 "Grand Challenges Explorations" grant to find the causes of diseases in babies by studying their hair.

"In the newborn, it may be that they were exposed to infections in the mom’s womb or chemical exposures, and the information that would be provided to that hospital could be really valuable in changing how these mothers are treated," said Yu.

Yu added, "The discovery of traces of RNA (ribonucleic acid) in our hair by graduate students and researchers in my lab allows us to, for the first time, read the messages of a growing fetus. We can read the messages of whether the fetal hair encountered an infection, a chemical or imbalance. We can figure out the order of these messages like the rings of a tree or like a ticker tape."

Yu said if they’re successful, doctors throughout the world could send them samples so they can study various diseases.

"Once we can learn about the RNA messages of the hair, we can discover what things trigger a disease or how well a drug is working," Yu said. "This is a really cool idea. It could replace a lot of ways that we normally diagnose disease, so instead of doing blood draws, maybe you would send in a hair and we could tell you, you have diabetes."

San Diego State University engineering professor Dr. Temesgen Garoma was also awarded a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Garoma is conducting research to improve sanitation and reduce contamination of drinking water supplies.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded 110 $100,000 grants to various projects this week. The foundation looks for innovative ideas to overcome persistent global health problems.

Successful projects have an opportunity for a follow-up grant of up to $1 million.