Researchers discovered that GNF6702 could be the best cure for tropical diseases, as it fights and kills parasites which cause sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, and leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is mostly found in Africa, Asia, and both Americas.
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The scientists involved in the research identified a compound called GNF6702 that could treat Trypanosoma brucei, Trypansosoma cruzi and Leishmania parasites.
The disease threatens millions of people in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
Researchers have identified a new drug capable of treating these parasitic infections.
Leishmaniasis is transmitted by sand flies and is characterized by skin sores, while sleeping sickness, also known as trypanosomiasis, is spread by the tsetse fly and could potentially lead to serious neurological conditions.
There are drugs to treat these diseases individually, but they are expensive, toxic and often need to be administered using an intravenous drip, which is not practical in poor areas. While the researchers report the compound did not appear to have adverse effects in the rodents, and cleared the infections, it still must be tested for safety before planning clinical trials to test efficacy in humans. It was found that the upgrade, codenamed GNF6702, could treat Trypanosoma brucei, Trypansosoma cruzi and Leishmania infections in mice. These drugs do not work in poor regions.
“What makes it unique is the fact it is targeting all three parasites”.
“There’s been very little incentive to spend a lot of money on these diseases as they affect a very poor, and yet large, population”. The researchers then refined it to become more potent before they proceeded to conducting tests on mice. The structures recycle waste proteins in the parasite. This does not affect similar chemical processes in mammals.
The research, which was led by scientists from the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), included collaboration with colleagues at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD), University of York, University of Washington and the University of Glasgow.
Before this discovery, the assumption was that proteasomes were too similar across all species to come up with a non-toxic drug.
“Our data provide genetic and chemical validation of the parasite proteasome as a promising therapeutic target for treatment of kinetoplastid infections, and underscore the possibility of developing a single class of drugs for these neglected diseases”, the researchers wrote in their study.
“The biology of the diseases is different”.
Dr Stephen Caddick, the director of innovation at the Wellcome Trust research charity which helped fund the study, told the BBC News website: “These are pretty nasty, highly prevalent parasites and affect people living in the most poverty-stricken parts of world”. But during that time the parasite is progressively infecting most of the body’s organs. “This is quite an important piece of research, I’m excited by it, but there’s still a long way to go”, he says.
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