15
Dyson Year in Review 2014–2015
Bill Gates Approved
Nigel Yarlett, professor and director at Pace's Haskins Laboratories,
and his team at the lab were awarded a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
grant for their work culturing the Cryptosporidium parasite.
Yarlett and his team have produced a continuous Cryptosporidium
culture that has survived for six months and counting, a feat not
previously achieved. Crypto, the disease caused by the parasite,
kills 100,000 people annually. To test and develop consistently
effective drug therapies, a continuous living culture is needed
and this is something that does not currently exist.
Things are looking promising. The team has gone on to prove
that parasites grown in the artificial culture environment maintain
virulence, one of the many unknowns of the experiment, by infecting
an immunocompromised mouse line.
If the parasites survive the rigors of time and testing, then Yarlett
and his team may reverse the course of the disease and improve
the lives of those affected by it.
