David Aanensen from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom and Maria van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization in Switzerland will combine next generation DNA sequencing technology with a simple, web-based data collection, processing, and distribution platform to better track the global spread of deadly infectious diseases including Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV). MERS - also known as camel flu - is a viral disease that causes fever, cough, diarrhea, and shortness of breath, and is transmitted from camels to humans. One third of people diagnosed with the disease die. Next generation sequencing (NGS) technology allows rapid, inexpensive detection of pathogens as they spread. However, laboratories in different member states use different formats for sequencing data, and there is no mechanism for sharing it in real time. This limits the value of the technology for stopping outbreaks. To address this, they will establish routine sequencing protocols for both human and camel samples, and develop an interactive web platform on which the sequencing and epidemiological data can be shared. This will help develop more effective, real-time medical and non-medical interventions at local, national, and international levels. Once established, the protocols developed here may be applied to outbreaks of other diseases.

The emergence of drug resistance has rendered most clinically used drugs ineffective. There is, therefore, the need to discover new, safe, effective and novel chemo types with new modes of action. This project seeks to continue medicinal chemistry efforts on a chemical class identified from the MMV Pathogen box to develop an early lead with in vivo antitubercular/antimalarial activity as a proof-of-concept

This project builds on intra-African and international (pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions) collaborations to identify medicinal chemistry starting points from the screening of target-based chemical libraries against the causative agents of malaria, leishmaniasis and Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), also known as sleeping sickness.

This research proposes to apply new protocols that have been developed at RUBi combined with traditional computational drug discovery approaches to further improve our understanding of rational drug discovery in the context of tuberculosis and malaria. Additionally, where applicable, it aims to identify novel hits from African natural products against these diseases as screening of them may lead to the development of novel pharmaceutics in Africa