Therapeutics/Drugs

Babak Javid of Tsinghua University School of Medicine in China will determine whether drugs that increase the accuracy of protein production in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes TB, can boost the effect of existing TB drugs and thereby shorten the current 6 month treatment period. They hypothesized that resistance to TB drugs is caused in part by the ability of the bacterium to change its proteins by making random errors during their synthesis (known as mistranslation).

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.

Andrew Prentice of the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom will conduct a phase II clinical trial to test the ability of a unique nano iron compound to safely and more effectively treat iron-deficiency anemia in children. Iron-deficiency anemia is a common condition particularly in women and children in resource-poor settings and can be deadly. Current iron supplements have limited effects in these settings and undesirable side effects including increasing the risk of infectious diarrhea in children which causes severe morbidity and mortality.

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.

Aurelien Forget of the University of South Australia in Australia will develop a three-dimensional bioprinted model of the fallopian tube (oviduct) as a screening platform to identify compounds that specifically block sperm activation for developing a female contraceptive that targets male sperm. This contraceptive could in principle be taken before or after intercourse, and would pose no risk to male fertility as it is taken by the female, or to female fertility as it targets a male-specific process. It should also avoid the side effects associated with classical hormonal contraceptives.

Pradip Maiti of Immunimed Inc. in Canada will provide passive immunotherapy using chicken-egg-derived polyclonal antibodies against key proteins of the intestinal parasite Cryptosporidium. This orally-administered immunotherapy will prevent the chronic diarrhea and potentially lethal infection caused by this parasite. Treating patients directly with antibodies against a pathogen is quicker than using traditional vaccination methods that induce individuals to make their own antibodies, which takes days to weeks and can also be difficult in malnourished children.

Darryl Russell of the University of Adelaide in Australia is seeking safer contraceptives that block ovulation without altering hormone levels and cause fewer side effects using an automated in-vitro screening platform that measures cell adhesion in the cumulus-oocyte complex, which is required to release the oocyte from the ovary. In Phase I, they built the screening platform by isolating cumulus-oocyte complexes from mice, culturing them in fibronectin-coated multi-well plates, and quantifying adhesion in a 96-well plate format using an automated assay.

Sumiti Vinayak of the University of Georgia in the U.S. will develop a genetic tool to rapidly turn genes off using light in order to study the function of essential genes in the intestinal parasite Cryptosporidium and accelerate drug discovery. Cryptosporidium causes chronic diarrhea and can lead to death in young children. There is currently only one drug available and it is not effective in many patients.

Randall Peterson of the University of Utah in the U.S. will develop a zebrafish model for high-throughput screens to identify compounds that inhibit the formation of gametes, i.e., sperm or eggs, (gametogenesis), which could lead to male and female contraceptives that last for weeks or months after only a single dose. They will generate transgenic zebrafish lines that express a selection of four fluorescently-labeled markers for different stages of gametogenesis that can be rapidly quantified to measure the effects of candidate compounds on blocking gamete production.