GALVESTON, Texas – The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The $100,000 grant will help Alejandro Castellanos-Gonzalez, assistant professor at UTMB, and his team pursue an innovative global health and development research project aimed at defining targets for drug development against a diarrhea causing parasite.

 
Grand Challenges Explorations supports innovative thinkers worldwide exploring ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges.  Castellanos-Gonzalez’s project is one of more than 55 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 17 grants announced today by the foundation. 
 
To receive funding, Castellanos-Gonzalezand other Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of six critical global heath and development topic areas. The foundation will be accepting applications for the next round of funding in February 2017.    
 
Diarrhea kills approximately 2,000 children every day, and is the second leading cause of death among children under the age of 5, Castellanos-Gonzalez said.
 
Recent studies have indicated that the infection caused by the intestinal parasite Cryptosporidium is one of the most prevalent causes of diarrhea in the world. There are no optimal treatments against this parasite and the scientific community has concluded that one of the bottlenecks for the development of novel drugs against this parasite is the lack of genetic methods to study the function of petential drug targets in this microorganism.
 
Castellanos-Gonzalez has developed a novel method to silence genes in Cryptosporidium by using complexes of protein with slicer activity and small interfering RNA. In this project, Castellanos-Gonzalez’s research team will identify and validate targets in Cryptosporidium with the objective of defining the optimal targets for drug development against this debilitating parasite.
 
“This project has the potential to help people around the world,” Castellanos-Gonzalez said. “We are proud to have been selected for funding by the Grand Challenges Explorations to do this important work.”