Infectious Disease

K. Ganesan and Pradip Sen of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research - Institute of Microbial Technology in India will work to selectively kill cells latently infected with HIV by engineering reagents that would initiate killing only upon specific binding to proviral DNA. If successful, further development could result in a possible cure for latent HIV, which is thought to block the ability of anti-retroviral drugs to fully eradicate the disease. This grant was selected through India's IKP Knowledge Park and their IKP-GCE program.

Kanury Rao of International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in India is testing small molecule inhibitors of host proteins required for M. tuberculosis to survive and replicate within host cells. Identifying and optimizing compounds that target host proteins could lead to new drug therapies for tuberculosis that are effective even against multidrug-resistant bacterial strains. This grant was selected through India's IKP Knowledge Park and their IKP-GCE program.

Rohit Srivastava and Aravind Kumar of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in India will develop a microneedle-based drug delivery system for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB). Current treatment involves frequent administration of combinations of toxic drugs, which often leads to non-compliance necessitating further complex treatments.

Vishwas Joshi and colleagues from Seagull BioSolutions in India will develop a vaccine against the dengue virus by engineering a defective version of the measles virus to express dengue virus proteins (a so-called virosome), which can induce protective immunity. There is currently no approved vaccine that protects against dengue infection, which causes disease in 50-100 million people annually, some of which are life threatening. They will test the efficacy of the virosomes to prevent dengue virus infection by using them to vaccinate mice and analyzing immunity upon viral exposure.

Kouichi Hasegawa of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in India will develop an assay using human liver cells to study the parasite Plasmodium vivax, which causes malaria, and to screen for new anti-malarial drugs. During the parasitic life cycle inside human hosts, P. vivax infects hepatocytes (liver cells), where it can lie dormant and protected from treatment, leading to disease relapse. To identify new drugs to target this stage of P. vivax requires large numbers of human liver cells, which are difficult to obtain and often unsuitable.

Carmenza Spadafora of Panama's Institute of Advanced Scientific Investigations and High Technology Services and José A. Stoute of Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in the U.S. investigated whether malaria can be treated by microwave irradiation, an idea based on the unique electromagnetic properties of hemozoin, a metabolite formed by Plasmodium parasites in infected red blood cells. This project's Phase I research demonstrated that malaria parasites inside red blood cells are sensitive to low doses of microwaves that do not harm uninfected red blood cells.

Gerard Cangelosi and colleagues at the UW Foundation in the U.S. will develop an oral swabbing method as a lower-cost safe and simple way to diagnose tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a major global health threat and prompt diagnosis and treatment are critical for reducing spread. Currently a diagnosis is made by testing sputum from deep in the lungs produced by coughing. This can be difficult to collect and produce particularly for children and hazardous for health care workers.

Rakesh Jain of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will develop a new treatment strategy for tuberculosis to boost the activity of existing anti-tuberculosis drugs. Tuberculosis is one of the most infectious diseases in the world. Current treatments are lengthy poorly tolerated and do not eradicate latent infections which are found in around one third of the general population and contribute to drug resistance. During latent infection the tuberculosis bacteria are dormant and reside in small inflammatory areas in the lungs known as granulomas.

Cebile Manzini-Henwood of SWAGAA will partner with Together for Girls and Population Council to adapt the 'The Girl Roster' tool, which has been used effectively in diverse settings to identify the most vulnerable girls within a community, and to test and implement several innovative approaches to working with girls in Swaziland. For nearly a decade, SWAGAA has worked with Crossroads International to implement Girls' Empowerment Clubs in schools to help improve gender equality by strengthening girls' social assets and self-efficacy related to sexual behavior, violence and HIV.