Professor Andy Thompson- Parasitologist
How does an idea save lives?
Sleeping sickness is a life-threatening disease affecting millions of people, and their livestock, in Africa. It is transmitted through the bite of a tiny tsetse fly, which transfer the parasite trypanosome to humans and cattle. Effective, affordable and safe drugs are urgently needed to treat this disease.
Parasitologist Professor Andrew Thompson’s team and start-up biotechnology company Epichem Pty Ltd have been making major inroads over the past 10 years into finding treatments for parasitic diseases such as sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and cryptosporidiosis.
They are now on the brink of achieving some exciting results.
‘We want to find an effective drug treatment against major tropical diseases to bring relief to millions of sufferers in developing countries’
Need to find cure
“Sleeping sickness is a major life-threatening disease affecting millions of people and livestock in Africa caused by the parasite Trypanosoma,” Professor Thompson said.
The disease is fatal if left untreated. It is transmitted via the bite of bloodsucking tsetse flies that transfer the parasites to humans and cattle. As the parasites invade the central nervous system, mental deterioration begins, leading to coma and eventually death – within weeks or after several months.
International recognition
The team has recently moved into the international spotlight with significant funding from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) in Geneva to tackle sleeping sickness.
The funding, which began with $240,000 in the first year, will enable the team to move onto optimising lead compounds – the crucial step before human clinical trials.
“This international recognition of our research is a major step forward. We hope this progress in our sleeping sickness project will lay the foundation to develop other promising compounds we have developed against Cryptosporidium and Leishmania,” Professor Thompson said.
Epichem is a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian pharmaceutical company PharmAust Limited.
Discover related areas of study:
Veterinary Science
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