Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, is part of the group of recipients for the 2025 Hill Prize by the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST). The prizes, funded by Lyda Hill Philanthropies, propel high-risk, high-reward ideas and innovations that demonstrate significant potential for real-world impact and can lead to new, paradigm-shifting paths in research.
Hotez is among six awardees, the others focusing on medicine, engineering, biological sciences, physical sciences and technology. Each of the six winning proposals will receive $500,0000 in funding from Lynda Hill Philanthropies to accelerate their work. This is the first year that the prizes recognize six awardees, including a new Prize in Public Health, thanks to a $10 million commitment from Lyda Hill Philanthropies to expand and extend the Hill Prizes.
The projects selected for the 2025 Hill Prizes focus on creative, collaborative approaches to some of the world's biggest challenges, featuring top-tier, cross-disciplinary teams with leaders and researchers from multiple institutions. A committee of TAMEST members (Texas-based members of the National Academies) selected the recipients, and finalists were endorsed by a committee of Texas Nobel and Breakthrough Prize Laureates and approved by the TAMEST Board of Directors.
Hotez and his team were chosen for the 2025 Hill Prize in Public Health for creating a critical response to escalating health risks intensified by climate disasters through The Texas Virosphere Project. The changing climate continues to alter biodiversity and habitats of disease vectors, such as mosquitos and ticks, expanding the geographic distribution of emerging and neglected tropical infectious diseases to Texas and the broader Gulf Coast. This expansion increases the vulnerability for vector-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, Zika, Chagas disease, typhus, tick-borne relapsing fever and related human and veterinary illnesses.
He and his team will collaborate with researchers at Rice University to create a predictive disease atlas with public health applications to help foreshadow potential outbreaks before they become public health emergencies. This approach, which combines climate science and metagenomics to access 3,000 insect genomes, aims to revolutionize the understanding of disease ecology. It will guide local and state health departments to improve disease prevention and control strategies, inform public health policies and ultimately address social determinants of health in Texas and the Gulf Coast.
Other awardees include:
- Hill Prize in Medicine: Kenneth M. Hargreaves, D.D.S., Ph.D., The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
- Hill Prize in Engineering: Joan Frances Brennecke, Ph.D. (NAE), The University of Texas at Austin
- Hill Prize in Biological Sciences: David J. Mangelsdorf, Ph.D. (NAM, NAS), UT Southwestern Medical Center
- Hill Prize in Physical Sciences: James Chelikowsky, Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin
- Hill Prize in Technology: Robert De Lorenzo, M.D., EmergenceMed, LLC
Awardees will be recognized at the opening reception of the TAMEST 2025 Annual Conference in Irving, Texas.
