Roy Curtiss, Ph.D., the George William and Irene Keochig Freiberg Professor of Biology Emeritus, has been awarded a $14.8 million Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Curtiss is one of 42 other recipients of the first-ever awards headed by the Gates Foundation; He will tackle the grand challenge of developing a Salmonella-based oral vaccine to protect infants from bacterial pneumonia.
Curtiss will build upon Salmonella techniques he developed at Washington University to develop his vaccine. Curtiss presently is professor of biology at Arizona State University and will perform his research there.
Curtiss came to Washington University in 1983 and was biology department chair in Arts & Sciences from 1983-1993.