£8.1m for tropical diseases drug design research

Scientists at the University have embarked on an ambitious new project to help discover new drugs to treat some of the world's most neglected tropical diseases.

The diseases, which include African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease and leishmaniasis, affect millions of the world's poorest people and attract little or no interest from pharmaceutical companies.

No vaccines exist to prevent these debilitating and often lethal infections. Many of the current drugs have serious side effects and would not meet current standards for safety and efficacy. Others are either too expensive for widespread use or becoming less effective because of resistance.

A team of six scientists at the School of Life Sciences has been awarded £8.1 million from the Wellcome Trust to develop the programme of drug discovery. Professor Mike Ferguson, Professor Alan Fairlamb, Professor Bill Hunter, Professor Ian Gilbert, Professor Julie Frearson and Dr Daan van Aalten are hoping to translate basic research discoveries into candidate drugs ready for clinical trials.

"Sleeping sickness is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa and is fatal if not treated, but the front-line arsenical drug, melarsoprol, is so poisonous that it kills 5% of patients receiving treatment," said Professor Fairlamb, who is leading the project with Professor Ferguson.

"Chagas' disease is a silent killer; patients are often unaware of being infected but about 15% of them will die prematurely from heart failure or other complications. The existing drugs are toxic and only cure some patients in the early stages of infection.

"The leishmaniases are a set of diseases ranging from nasty skin infections - oriental sore - to grossly disfiguring infections that eat away the nose and mouth - espundia - or to fatal infections of the liver, bone marrow and spleen - kala azar. Again, the existing drugs leave much to be desired and drug resistance is a major problem."

The gap between basic research in academic laboratories and applied research in the drug industry has widened considerably in this area over the last decade. The Dundee scientists aim to bridge this gap by embarking on a programme to exploit 'drug targets' already discovered in their basic research by adding industry-style compound screening and medicinal chemistry.

The £8.1 million grant will allow them to add a team of 16 scientists to their existing 60 and to span all the disciplines needed to go from biology to drug design, synthesis and testing. The new activities will be housed in the newly completed Centre for Interdisciplinary Research.

Professor Ferguson said, "We are delighted with the enthusiasm, good-will and financial support we have received from the University and the Wellcome Trust to get this underway. This initiative will have a major impact on those suffering from these appalling diseases."

The total project, including the construction and equipping of the new state-of-the-art laboratories, will cost about £13 million over the next five years. While the lion's share of the additional research and development activity will be met by the Wellcome Trust award, very significant investments in infrastructure and academic appointments have been made by the University, by the Scottish Higher-Education Funding Council (in the form of a strategic research development grant of £1.5 million to Dundee, Glasgow and St Andrews Universities) and by The Wolfson Foundation, who gave £2 million to help construct the new laboratories.

"We are particularly pleased to welcome on board Professor Julie Frearson, recruited from the company Cambridge BioFocus plc, who will set up and oversee our compound screening facility, Professor Ian Gilbert, recruited from Cardiff University, who will supervise the medicinal chemistry, and Dr Ruth Brenk, recruited from The University of California, San Francisco, who will bolster our computational chemistry and drug design."