Houston vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez can add yet another prize to his shelf.
Hotez — dean of the Nationwide College of Tropical Drugs and professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor School of Drugs, co-director of the Texas Kids’s Middle for Vaccine Growth (CVD) and Texas Kids’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics — is not any stranger to spectacular laurels. In 2022, he was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his low-cost COVID vaccine.
His first massive win of 2025 is that this yr’s Hill Prize, awarded by the Texas Academy of Drugs, Engineering, Science and Know-how (TAMEST).
Hotez and his group have been chosen to obtain $500,000 from Lyda Hill Philanthropies to assist fund The Texas Virosphere Venture. The endeavor was born to assist create a predictive illness atlas regarding local weather disasters. As a result of the local weather disaster has ushered in adjustments to the distribution of illnesses, together with dengue, chikungunya, Zika, Chagas illness, typhus and tick-borne relapsing fever, it’s necessary to foretell outbreaks earlier than they change into a menace.
Rice College researchers are collaborating with Hotez and his group on a mission that mixes local weather science and metagenomics to entry 3,000 insect genomes. The objective is to help well being departments in controlling illness and informing coverage.
The Hill Prize, which is being awarded to 6 innovators for the primary time, due to a $10 million dedication from the philanthropic group, is meant to again concepts which can be high-risk and high-reward. Every of the tasks was chosen for its potential real-life influence on a few of Texas’s — and the world’s — most difficult conditions. Hotez’s prize is the primary Hill Prize to be given within the realm of public well being. The extra winners are:
- Hill Prize in Drugs: Kenneth M. Hargreaves, D.D.S., Ph.D., The College of Texas Well being Science Middle at San Antonio
- Hill Prize in Engineering: Joan Frances Brennecke, Ph.D. (NAE), The College of Texas at Austin
- Hill Prize in Organic Sciences: David J. Mangelsdorf, Ph.D. (NAM, NAS), UT Southwestern Medical Middle
- Hill Prize in Bodily Sciences: James Chelikowsky, Ph.D., The College of Texas at Austin
- Hill Prize in Know-how: Robert De Lorenzo, M.D., EmergenceMed, LLC
Examine different Houston-area researchers acknowledged by TAMEST right here.
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This story initially was revealed on our sister website, InnovationMap.
