Neglected Tropical Diseases

This project will develop a low-cost nucleic acid detection test that will enable rapid detection of pathogens that cause sleeping sickness in Africa and Chagas’ disease in South America, both in vectors and human. This will strengthen surveillance activities and enhance monitoring of therapeutic outcome in resource-poor endemic areas.

The project seeks to develop a simple, fast, and accurate test to improve the number of sleeping sickness patients that are detected and thus increase the case management rate. When successful, tests will be conducted in the less equipped rural laboratories where needed. Sleeping sickness is a neglected disease that burdens rural populations in the tsetse fly belt.

Dengue, a disease transmitted mostly from mosquito bites, is a leading cause of serious illness and death in developing countries, including the Philippines. Dengue prevention and control solely depends on effective vector control measures and/or detection methods, but dengue detection kits are not affordable or always accessible.   Current techniques require a relatively high level of technical skill, equipment, and are time-consuming.

Project aims to develop a low-cost hand-held device for field diagnostic of dengue. This device should allow real-time detection of the disease. Follow Alexandre Brolo on Twitter @agbrolo"

Early detection of dengue fever is needed to determined which patient must acquire intensive monitoring. Lidya Chaidir from Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia will develop a rapid molecular assay for early detection of dengue fever in primary care. This tool would empower any field clinics to diagnose dengue promptly.

The project, “Development of a point of care test for the diagnosis of Buruli ulcer disease” at the Noguchi Institute aims at providing endemic communities with a simple, rapid, accurate and cost effective test for the detection of Buruli ulcer cases for early treatment initiation and prevention of disabling complications. Click HERE to Download the photos below. Follow Anthony Ablordey on Twitter @AAblordey  [caption id=""attachment_7964"align=""aligncenter"width=""492""] Star in Global Health Dr.

ctrl.para.site is a teleparasitology system linking peripheral labs to experts via a microscope-online-mobile phone interface, with an expected multiplier effect of improving access to diagnosis and treatment, capacity building, and new information.

Diseases affecting rural communities in the tropics co-exist and often share symptoms. Clinical diagnosis is the foundation for treatment. Consequently, deaths due to misdiagnosis and drug wastage occur. I intend to use silkworm to generate diagnostic proteins for multiple pathogens with overlapping symptoms and develop a multi-disease diagnostic kit.

Warwick Grant of La Trobe University in Australia will develop a small animal parasite model to test candidate drugs for treating the parasitic nematode Onchocerca volvulus, which causes river blindness in humans. They will establish infection of the related parasite Cercopithifilaria johnstoni in rats and evaluate the pathology for similarity to the human disease. The model will then be validated for testing human anti-onchocercal drug candidates by analyzing the effect of drugs with proven success in patients.

Stephen Oliver and Elizabeth Bilsland at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom will develop a yeast-based screen to identify compounds inhibiting selected enzymes from parasitic filarial worms, which cause several common and debilitating diseases. Candidate enzymes as potential antifilarial drug targets will be selected based on their importance specifically in the adult stages of the parasite life cycle, against which current drugs are ineffective.