Nutritional biologist wins Gates innovation grant

Next grants open in March   The next round of Grand Challenges Explorations will open in March 2011. More information, including grant application instructions and a list of topics for which proposals will be accepted, will be available at www.grandchallenges.org/explorations.

PULLMAN – A Gates Foundation grant will support innovative research by a WSU faculty member investigating how breastfeeding might reduce the risk of disease.

 

 

The highly competitive grant received 2,400 proposals in this, the fifth, funding round. McGuire’s grant is one of 65 awarded to scientists in 16 countries on five continents. She showed in a two-page application how her idea falls outside scientific paradigms and might lead to significant advances in global health.

 

“These are bold ideas from innovative thinkers, which is exactly what we need in global health research right now,” said Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program. “I’m excited to see some of these daring projects develop into life-saving breakthroughs for those who need them the most.”

 

The grant will support an innovative global health research project to explore how bacteria in healthy human milk influence the health of breastfeeding infants. The project will be conducted in collaboration with her colleague, Mark McGuire, in the Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences at the University of Idaho.

 

Breastfed and formula-fed infants have different intestinal bacteria (microbiota), which are thought to influence risk for infectious diarrhea – a significant and often fatal health issue in much of the developing world.

 

It has been shown that breastfeeding greatly decreases the risk and severity of the disease. Although the mechanisms are not completely understood, experts believe that immune factors and other components in breast milk – but not present in cow’s milk or infant formula – are at least partly responsible for this protection.

Historically, human milk has been considered sterile and devoid of living organisms. However, the coordinated laboratories of Shelley and Mark McGuire have shown that is not so; in fact, healthy human milk contains an amazingly diverse array of “friendly,” or commensal, bacteria.

 

The grant funding will be used to test the researchers’ hypothesis that commensal microbiota in healthy human milk interact synergistically with other milk-borne immunomodulatory substances and cells to influence risk of infectious diarrhea in the breastfeeding infant. They also will test whether maternal consumption of probiotic foods can influence this dynamic process and ultimately influence infant health.

About Grand Challenges Explorations
Grand Challenges Explorations is a five-year, $100 million initiative of the Gates Foundation to promote innovation in global health. The program uses an agile, streamlined grant process – applications are limited to two pages and preliminary data are not required.

 

Proposals are reviewed and selected by a committee of foundation staff and external experts. Grant decisions are made within approximately three months of the close of the funding round.

 

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