Open Chagas

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The drug discovery research and development community in Latin American is working hard to better understand and treat Chagas disease and other neglected tropical diseases in the region, but there are still clear gaps in the translational sciences. Despite significant effort from R&D partners, few drug discovery projects have yielded new pre-clinical and clinical candidates. A review of publications led by Latin American researchers over the last decade showed that 95% of Chagas drug discovery reports stopped at the hit identification phase and did not generate the data needed to progress compounds in the pipeline. 

Open Chagas aims to address the urgent need for a strong, collaborative R&D network to discover and develop new drugs that can cure Chagas disease – closing the gaps between treatment needs, the potential of researchers in Latin American, and the coordination of the multiple scientific skills involved in effective drug discovery and development.

By opening a two-way channel between DNDi and the drug discovery community in Latin America, we are empowering researchers to approach DNDi and share their research confidentially within a structured framework. All applicants will benefit from a free review and professional feedback on their Chagas disease drug discovery projects from DNDi experts – with selected researchers invited to participate in drug discovery research training and potential partnerships within the DNDi Lead Optimization Latin America (LOLA) network.

Open Chagas is aligned with DNDi’s strategic goals of championing open science and fostering end-to-end R&D in endemic regions. It builds on the success of the LOLA consortium, initiated in 2013, which combines its central objective of identifying new pre-clinical candidates for Chagas and leishmaniasis with its mission to foster sustainable drug discovery networks able to conduct world-class early-stage research in Latin America.

Project stages

Scope

DNDi seeks to map novel antiparasitic compounds with promising activity against Trypanosoma cruzi identified and developed by research groups in Latin America to supplement the Chagas disease drug discovery pipeline. The scope of Open Chagas is limited to projects investigating new chemical entities (small molecules), repurposed drug candidates, natural products (isolated characterized compounds, not extracts), or combinations.

The scope of the Open Chagas programme does not include projects investigating biologics, vaccines, vector control, new formulations of standard-of-care drugs, chemical probes used solely in exploration of parasite biology, or pure computational efforts without experimental data. Please refer to DNDi’s target candidate profile (TCP) and screening cascade for indications of the type of experimental data expected.

Target candidate profile and screening cascade

We are primarily looking to map new chemical matter that have experimental activity against intracellular Trypanosoma cruzi, according to our previously published target candidate profile (TCP) and screening cascade. Our ultimate goal is delivering new drug candidates and treatments aligned with DNDi’s target product profile (TPP).

Participate in Open Chagas

Submissions to Open Chagas are open to all researchers in Latin America from the launch date until 31 January 2025. DNDi feedback to applicants is expected by May 2025, followed by the start of Stage 2 of the project.

Submission guidelines
For submission, please follow the guidelines below:

• Request for information form
• Compound sheet (one compound sheet per series)
  • If the applicant has >15 compounds belonging to the same chemical series, please contact the project at dndiopenchagas@dndi.org for further instruction. For submissions of series with <15 compounds, please follow the general guidelines.

Please include as much information as you can, including project background, current medicinal chemistry/mitigation strategies, compound data, and assay protocols.

• Read our Terms & Conditions.
• If you agree to our Terms & Conditions, please send the completed Request for Information Form and Compound Sheet(s) to dndiopenchagas@dndi.org.