Infectious Disease

Janis Weeks and Shawn Lockery of the University of Oregon and NemaMetrix in the U.S. have developed a drug discovery platform that they will tailor to identify new drugs for treating soil-transmitted helminthic (STH) infections, which are caused by parasitic nematodes (worms). STH infections are the most common human infection, causing pain, disability, and even death. However, current treatments are inadequate and due to technological barriers there are no new drugs on the horizon.

Stephen Miller and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the U.S. will identify and characterize molecular features that can easily penetrate Roundworms (nematodes), which commonly infect humans and can cause disability and death. Current treatment options are limited and toxic, and are losing efficacy due to the development of resistance mechanisms that can prevent the drug from entering the worm.

Denis Voronin of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom will identify new drugs for treating common and debilitating human parasitic diseases known as filariasis, which are caused by nematode worms, by specifically targeting their essential bacterial symbiont, Wolbachia.

Joseph Turner of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom will develop a small animal model of the parasitic disease onchocerciasis, also called river blindness, which is the second leading infectious cause of blindness. Treatment options for filarial infections are currently limited and lack effectiveness. Thus, small animal models of filarial infections are invaluable for preclinical testing of candidate drugs.

Richard Komuniecki of The University of Toledo in the U.S. will develop a high-throughput screening platform to identify novel drug targets for treating parasitic nematode (worm) infections, which cause significant morbidity in developing countries. Current drugs are ineffective against some parasitic species, and other species are becoming resistant, thus there is an urgent need for alternative approaches. However, high-throughput drug screens have been challenging because most parasitic nematodes cannot be cultured in the laboratory.

Elijah Songok of the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kenya will design and test a fortified school meal product with deworming properties for treating soil transmitted helminths (parasitic worms) among schoolchildren in developing countries. Schoolchildren are most at risk of infection-associated morbidities such as stunting and chronic dysentery. However, current mass drug administration strategies are associated with the development of drug resistance, and may not be sustainable long term.

Bryan Bellaire of Iowa State University in the U.S. will improve the safety and efficacy of therapies for treating filarial diseases caused by parasitic nematodes (worms), which are common in developing countries. Current drugs targeting the parasites are becoming ineffective due to the development of resistance, and antibiotics targeting their resident endosymbiont bacteria Wolbachia, which is essential for parasite survival, require multiple dosing regimens that are hard to maintain.

Sara Lustigman of the New York Blood Center in the U.S. will develop a three-dimensional in vitro culturing system to support the development of infective larvae of parasitic filarial worms through to adulthood. Currently adult filarial worms can only be isolated in limited numbers from infected humans or animals, which precludes high throughput drug screening.

J. Brandon Dixon of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S. will develop a scalable, microfluidic-based model of a human lymphatic vessel to support adult- stage lymphatic filariasis (LF) parasites in vitro. LF parasites cause a range of diseases for which treatment options are limited. By recreating the host environment where the parasites normally reside they can keep them alive for longer periods of time, which is required for developing urgently needed new drugs.

Melvin Reichman of the LIMR Chemical Genomics Center Inc. in the U.S., working with Vicky Avery of the Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies in Australia, will develop and validate a new drug screening approach called Ultra-High Throughput Screening for Synergy (uHTSS) to discover new drug combinations from the Tres Cantos anti-malarial set for the treatment of malaria.