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Project

Control of sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis: from an insect bite to effective treatment.

Background: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) encompass a wide range of communicable diseases that are common in tropical and subtropical regions and affect more than 1 billion people worldwide. NTDs typically have a major impact on low-income countries and pose a major health threat in both developed and developing countries. A typical feature is high morbidity, which has a serious impact on quality of life, social integration, mental health and economic productivity and status. The situation is further complicated by globalization, human migration, climate change and the altered distribution of NTD-transmitting vectors (blood feeding arthropods such as mosquitoes, flies and ticks). As a result, even currently unaffected areas (including Europe) are facing the (re)emergence of NTDs and are at increased risk of becoming endemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the goals set out in the Millennium Declaration underline that monitoring NTDs not only has a direct medical impact but is also a strategy for combating poverty. That is why the WHO has listed 20 priority NTDs in the interest of global health and well-being. Two of these, leishmaniasis and human African trypanosomiasis (HAT, sleeping sickness) are at the heart of the research in my research group. Objectives: The parasitology research team I lead at LMPH (LMPH-PAR) uses a two-pronged approach to address NTDs, with an emphasis on drug discovery with novel mechanisms of action and immunoparasitology research. The main aim is to deliver key innovative elements with high translational potential to the next generation of therapies, diagnostics and vaccines using complementary and multidisciplinary approaches. In addition, there are still large knowledge gaps in the highly efficient transmission of parasites by their respective insect vectors, tsetse flies and sand flies. The primary objectives are (i) to understand the immunoparasitological basis of early infection after insect bite, (ii) identification of advanced anti-parasitic lead compounds, (iii) to determine the mechanisms of action of the most advanced leads with an emphasis on deconvolution of the targets, (iv) understanding the basis of treatment failure and the spread of resistance and (v) strategic exploration of innovative vaccines and diagnostic modalities to identify novel vaccine targets and obtain reliable cure tests.
Date:1 Feb 2021 →  Today
Keywords:LEISHMANIA, TRYPANOSOMA
Disciplines:Inflammation, Infectious diseases, Parasitology, Tropical medicine, In vitro testing, Non-clinical studies