Infectious Disease

Collen Masimirembwa, Professor and founding President and Chief Scientific Officer of the African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology (AiBST), Zimbabwe, will generate a research and innovation ecosystem, including training scientists and establishing centers of excellence in genomic medicine research, for the sustainable development of genomic and pharmaceutical medicine capability in Africa. Dr. Masimirembwa is on a mission to achieve world-class drug discovery and development capability in Africa.

Yaw Bediako, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Yemaachi Biotech and researcher at the West African Centre for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens in Ghana, will bring together African biotech and academia with the Francis Crick Institute to provide important insights into how vaccines can be designed to work more optimally among African people. The African continent has the highest infectious disease burden in the world but almost no capacity for vaccine development or testing.

Isabella Oyier, Associate Professor and Head of Bioscience at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kenya, will establish a national malaria molecular surveillance platform that is integrated into the Division of National Malaria Programme (DNMP) to directly translate research into policy. The malaria burden in Africa is no longer declining due to the emergence of new variants that are undetectable by standard diagnostics and resistant to the frontline antimalarial drug. Dr. Oyier, a leader in malaria molecular epidemiology, is committed to eradicating malaria in Africa.

Iruka Okeke, Professor of Pharmaceutical Microbiology at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan in Nigeria, will develop sequence-based methods and leverage genomics data to jumpstart the development of diagnostics and vaccines for neglected bacterial pathogens in African settings. Professor Okeke has devoted her career to studying neglected enteric bacteria that can cause potentially fatal bloodstream and diarrheal infections. She recognizes the power of genomics approaches to improve surveillance and better define pathogen virulence.

Gabriel Mashabela of the South African Medical Research Council will develop novel tuberculosis drugs derived from South African medicinal plants by utilizing CRISPR genome editing technology to produce Mycobacterium deficient in essential metabolic enzymes that can be used to screen natural products. Although the majority of approved drugs are of natural origin, most drug-screening approaches use synthetic libraries, which lack diversity. However, natural products contain very low concentrations of bioactive compounds making them difficult to use in traditional drug screens.

Erick Strauss of Stellenbosch University in South Africa will develop a small molecule inhibitor of an enzyme that helps pathogenic bacteria evade the host immune system and potentially become resistant to antibiotics as a novel treatment for methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), which is a major public health concern. They discovered a bacterial enzyme, MerA, that neutralizes an anti-microbial compound secreted by immune cells. This prolongs the survival of the bacteria in the host, giving them time to develop mutations that could render them less susceptible to antibiotics.

Fortunate Mokoena of North West University in South Africa will couple molecular docking approaches with in vitro and in vivo validation to identify novel inhibitors of Trypanosoma brucei and Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agents of the lethal diseases, African trypanosomiasis and malaria, respectively. Current drugs targeting these pathogens have limited efficacy due to the development of resistance and can cause severe side effects.

Grace Mugumbate of Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe will develop new anti-malarial drugs by using a chemogenomics approach for ligand-based and structure-based virtual screening to identify compounds that selectively bind to heat shock proteins of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. P. falciparum heat shock proteins are essential for parasite growth and survival, and represent a valuable new target for developing safe and effective anti-malarials.

Laurent Dembele of the Université des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako in Mali will use their cell-based ex vivo phenotypic drug assay to identify approved anti-malarial drugs that are effective also against the neglected malaria-causing pathogen Plasmodium malariae, which has become widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. To eliminate malaria, treatments should be effective for all circulating malaria pathogens. However, current artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are largely designed to target the historically more prevalent P.

Janine Aucamp of North-West University in South Africa will produce a novel drug screening platform for malaria by building a physiologically-relevant in vitro tissue model of the sinusoidal space of the human liver, which supports the development of liver-stage malaria parasites (sporozoites). Artemisinin-based combination therapies are first-line treatments for malaria but their efficacy suffers from the development of resistance, thus alternative approaches are needed.