A $20 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help Duke Global Health Institute battle diseases such as cancer, Ebola, MERS and diabetes in developing nations.

Half of the grant, announced Wednesday by Duke University, will go toward sustaining the growth of DGHI, which was established in 2006 to educate new generations of experts about global health challenges.

“We were delighted to get this grant,” said DGHI Director Michael Merson. “We see it as a vote of confidence in our institute, by one of the world’s best-known foundations.”

The other $10 million will support a challenge to raise matching funds, which will raise the total impact of the grant to $30 million.

“We are very much interested in expanding our education programs in global health,” said Merson. “We’ve recently started a global health major for undergrads. We have a master’s program, and we’re thinking of how we can, maybe, expand it for doctoral training.”

DGHI also does a lot of work in the United States, including those populations of North Carolina that need more access to care, as well as treatment and counseling for HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, diabetes and cancer.

More than four hundred students have completed courses at DGHI.