Our planet is populated by over 7 billion, highly interacting individuals, who are, at least in first world countries, enjoying longer, hyperconnected, and comfortable lives. These facts bring substantial strain to the healthcare systems, as people are more exposed to both communicable and non-communicable diseases. In stark contrast, communities in developing and low-income countries have limited access to healthcare. Similarly, while people in high income countries are putting substantial strain on energy resources, villages in low-income countries are completely off the grid. Therefore, there is the need to address healthcare and energy issues for both the rich and the developing countries, taking into account how approaches that could be effective for the rich world have to be made substantially cheaper, rugged, and portable to address the needs of low-income countries. In my talk, I will discuss how my group has been addressing these needs by developing new and advancing existing methods for the synthesis of gold nanomaterials, and by integrating them with novel approaches to diagnostics and catalysis.