Infectious Disease

The emergence of drug resistance has rendered most clinically used drugs ineffective. There is, therefore, the need to discover new, safe, effective and novel chemo types with new modes of action. This project seeks to continue medicinal chemistry efforts on a chemical class identified from the MMV Pathogen box to develop an early lead with in vivo antitubercular/antimalarial activity as a proof-of-concept

Andergechew Mulu of Armauer Hansen Research Institute in Ethiopia will develop an in-house HIV-1 drug resistance assay for Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors (INSTIs) that will be equivalent to the standard FDA-approved commercialized assays and available at low-cost for HIV care in Ethiopia.

Kinde Anlay of Jimma University in Ethiopia will design and develop hardware for a diagnostic system that can be used as artificial intelligence for early diagnosis of malaria and TB by attaching a smartphone camera to the ocular lense of a microscope by an adapter designed for this purpose.

Abel Worku of Jimma university in Ethiopia will develop a hand-washing machine that will help children wash their hands properly and remove microorganisms that cause diseases such as diarrheal disease common among children.

Martin Karplus of Harvard University in the U.S. will integrate informatics and artificial intelligence approaches to design stable, synthetic antigens based on the viral hemagglutinin (HA) protein to be used as a universal influenza vaccine. Seasonal influenza causes substantial morbidity worldwide, and the development of a universal vaccine is a global health priority. The current HA-based vaccines do not provide broad coverage against multiple strains, and must be administered annually because of the high mutability of the virus.

Patrick Wilson of the University of Chicago in the U.S. will generate a universal influenza vaccine based on multiple conserved and protective viral protein epitopes selected for their ability to produce a broad and lasting immune response. Influenza causes tens of thousands of deaths worldwide each year, and current vaccines designed around individual epitopes are only 20% to 60% effective.

Jonathan Heeney of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom will combine computational design with high-throughput synthetic biology to deliver an effective, universal influenza vaccine candidate for clinical trials in 24 months. Influenza infection impacts public health and the global economy, yet the high mutation rate of the virus has thwarted traditional approaches to develop a broadly effective vaccine.

Jonah Sacha of the Oregon Health & Science University in the U.S. will explore a new approach to vaccine design by using a cytomegalovirus (CMV) vector expressing conserved influenza antigens to induce an effector memory T cell response that persists in the lungs and can provide lifelong immunity against influenza.

Jacob Glanville of Distributed Bio in the U.S. will complete the pre-clinical development of Centivax Flu, a universal vaccine to protect humans and livestock against all forms of seasonal and pandemic influenza, in order to begin first-in-human studies in 2021. Pandemic and seasonal influenza have killed millions of people – the 1918 pandemic alone caused more deaths than World War One – and has led to widespread culling of infected swine and poultry populations. Current vaccines target highly variable regions of seasonal influenza and must be redesigned annually.

Peter Kwong of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S. will use an informatics-based approach to identify influenza virus epitopes that are especially suited to induce a strong and broad immune response, being conserved, accessible, and with a specific structural flexibility, and develop them as vaccine targets. Influenza is highly contagious and can cause severe illness, particularly among the young, elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions.