Infectious Disease

Rong Fan of Yale University in the U.S. seeks to develop a microchip to assess the functioning of single T cells. If successful, this technology could be used to evaluate HIV-specific T cell response in future HIV vaccine trials.

Thomas Lietman of the University of California, San Francisco in the U.S. will use mathematical models and cross-sectional survey data to determine the minimum number of people in a community who need to be treated for trachoma in order to halt transmission of the disease. Determining this core group can eliminate the need for mass antibiotic distribution, which results drug resistance in communities severely affected by this disease that is the leading cause of blindness.

Julie Dunning Hotopp of University of Maryland in the U.S. seeks to identify genes that have been laterally transferred into filarial nematode worm genomes from Wolbachia. Identifying these genes, could provide drug targets to cure neglected tropical diseases such as lymphatic filariasis and river blindness.

Robert H. Broyles of The Sickle Cell Cure Foundation, Inc. in the U.S. will build on the recent discovery that elevated fetal hemoglobin (HbF), which alleviates sickle cell disease, can also confer malaria resistance. Broyles will test the ability of a stable human protein to reactivate a silent gene that encodes for HbF, makings red blood cells inhospitable to malaria parasites. If successful, the idea is to target the therapy in the host to reduce malaria infections.

Hironori Matsushima of the University of Toledo in the U.S. will test the hypothesis that adding an antimicrobial peptide to powdered milk products can confer protection against enteric diseases. Research will focus on testing the peptide for its ability to kill pathogens in stomach conditions, and on its ability to maintain integrity through the milk pasteurization and drying processes.

John Jaenike of the University of Rochester in the U.S. will test the hypothesis that infecting blackflies with the bacteria Spiroplasma could impair the ability to transmit the parasite responsible for River Blindness,and also increase fertility of female flies that can pass along this beneficial bacteria to its offspring.

David Mills of the University of California, Davis in the U.S. will test whether oligosaccharides found in cow's milk can be used to enrich nutritional strategies of children who have been weaned. While human milk contains oligosaccharides that have been shown protect breast-feeding infants, the older children could benefit from enrichment of intestinal microbiota to prevent intestinal diseases.

Cynthia Kenyon of the University of California, San Francisco in the U.S. seeks to identify a natural viral pathogen that can be used to kill nematodes that cause a wide variety of diseases in humans, most of which disproportionately affect the developing world.

Patrick Kiser of the University of Utah in the U.S. will design a vaginal gel that blocks HIV by becoming impermeable in response to the pH change induced by the presence of semen, and includes a polymer engineered to bind to HIV surface proteins to halt viral transport to susceptible tissues and HIV target cells. In this project's Phase I research, Kiser and his team engineered a synthetic polymer that has many of the properties of mucus, and demonstrated that the polymers slow or stops the movement of cells in the presence of semen.

A high HIV mutation rate enables escape from powerful immune responses and anti-retroviral drugs. Reuben Harris of the University of Minnesota in the U.S. will test the hypothesis that HIV requires the human APOBEC3G protein to maintain a high mutation rate necessary for HIV survival. Inhibiting this protein may slow the mutation rate and make the virus more susceptible to immune responses.