The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave the University its first grant for medical research in December – a five-year, $18.7 million award – to study schistosomiasis, a worm infection prominent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The grant is the third largest in University history and the largest it has received from the Gates Foundation. Typical biomedical grants awarded to the University range from $1.5 million to $2 million over five years, according to the Office of the Vice President for Research.

Schistosomiasis – classified by the Gates Foundation as a neglected tropical disease – affects nearly 200 million people worldwide. The drug praziquantel is used to reduce mortality and decrease suffering among those infected, and the grant will allow researchers to determine whether the drug is being administered and distributed in the most effective ways.

“Millions and millions of people could be cured of what they have for drugs that cost pennies,” said Dan Colley, director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases and the principal investigator for the project.

Colley received a call last January from the Gates Foundation asking if he would develop a program for schistosomiasis research.

“It was a cold call. I didn’t know this was coming,” Colley said in a phone interview. “Usually you have to contact [the foundation].”

With the help of David Lee, the University’s vice president for research, Colley said he developed a proposal, worked out a budget and applied for a grant, which the foundation soon awarded.

The Gates Foundation already has provided $32 million in grants to support the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative in Africa, a program that helps African nations increase access to coveted treatments.

Colley, an immunologist, has spent much of his time researching the disease at a laboratory in Kenya, trying to better understand how the parasitic worm affects its host. With the aid of the grant money, he said he will be able to study schistosomiasis from a new angle. Colley and his team will try to discover how diagnostic methods, medication distribution and other control techniques could be improved to aid the 600 million people at risk of contracting the disease.

“Nobody has really done those kinds of research methods,” said Colley, who has studied the infection for nearly 40 years. “It’s not the kind of research I usually do.”

Colley’s previous research has received attention worldwide, earning him the Brazilian Presidential Medal for Scientific Merit in 2004. Lee said this level of international respect is what made Colley a prime candidate for the grant.

“Dr. Colley gets all the credit for acquiring this grant. There’s no question about that,” Lee said in an e-mail interview. “The grant is a direct result of the respect that his scholarship garners around the world.”