Principal Investigator (PI)
The Foundation is providing £184,095 in support.
Rosario Diaz - Joao Sexias - Sandra Luengo
GSK provides in-kind contributions (including facilities and expertise from supporting scientists for HTS and GSK collection of compounds).
The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei is an insect-borne pathogen that causes human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), which is commonly referred to as African sleeping sickness one of the world’s neglected tropical diseases, found in sub-Saharan Africa. The main problem the researchers tried to address is the lack of safe and effective treatments against this disease. A collaboration between investigators at Northeastern University in Boston and at the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine of the Spanish National Research Council (IPBLN-CSIC) in Granada identified a potent inhibitor of parasite growth among established classes of inhibitors of human kinase enzymes. Inspired by this initial success, Joao, Rosario and Sandra assessed more than 30,000 compounds in the GSK chemical library for their ability to suppress the spread of the harmful parasite that penetrates the central nervous system, where T. brucei, thepathogen which causes this potentially lethal disease, resides.
"This research would have taken much more time without access to GSK’s resources and expertise in miniaturisation technology which is fundamental to boost research in the diseases of the developing world."(Rosario Diaz, Open Lab scientist)