• DNDi - Best Science for the Most Neglected 20 Years
  • Our work
    • Diseases
      • Sleeping sickness
      • Visceral leishmaniasis
      • Cutaneous leishmaniasis
      • Chagas disease
      • Filaria: river blindness
      • Mycetoma
      • Paediatric HIV
      • Cryptococcal meningitis
      • Hepatitis C
      • Dengue
      • COVID-19
      • Antimicrobial resistance
    • Research & development
      • R&D portfolio & list of projects
      • Drug discovery
      • Translational research
      • Clinical trials
      • Registration & access
      • Treatments delivered
    • Advocacy
      • Open and collaborative R&D
      • Transparency of R&D costs
      • Pro-access policies and IP
      • Children’s health
      • Gender equity
      • Climate change
      • AI and new technologies
  • Networks & partners
    • Partnerships
      • Our partners
      • Partnering with us
    • Global networks
      • Chagas Platform
      • Dengue Alliance
      • HAT Platform
      • HELP Helminth Elimination Platform
      • LEAP Platform
      • redeLEISH Network
    • DNDi worldwide
      • DNDi Switzerland
      • DNDi DRC
      • DNDi Eastern Africa
      • DNDi Japan
      • DNDi Latin America
      • DNDi North America
      • DNDi South Asia
      • DNDi South-East Asia
      • DNDi Southern Africa
  • News & resources
    • News & stories
      • News
      • Stories
      • Statements
      • Viewpoints
      • Social media
      • eNews Newsletter
    • Press
      • Press releases
      • In the media
    • Resources
      • Scientific articles
      • Our publications
      • Videos
    • Events
  • About us
    • About
      • Who we are
      • How we work
      • Our strategy
      • Our donors
      • Annual reports
    • Our people
      • Our leadership
      • Our governance
      • Contact us
    • Work with us
      • Working at DNDi
      • Job opportunities
      • Requests for proposal
  • Donate
DNDi - Best Science for the Most Neglected 20 Years
  • DNDi - Best Science for the Most Neglected 20 Years
  • Our work
    • Diseases
      • Sleeping sickness
      • Visceral leishmaniasis
      • Cutaneous leishmaniasis
      • Chagas disease
      • Filaria: river blindness
      • Mycetoma
      • Paediatric HIV
      • Cryptococcal meningitis
      • Hepatitis C
      • Dengue
      • COVID-19
      • Antimicrobial resistance
    • Research & development
      • R&D portfolio & list of projects
      • Drug discovery
      • Translational research
      • Clinical trials
      • Registration & access
      • Treatments delivered
    • Advocacy
      • Open and collaborative R&D
      • Transparency of R&D costs
      • Pro-access policies and IP
      • Children’s health
      • Gender equity
      • Climate change
      • AI and new technologies
  • Networks & partners
    • Partnerships
      • Our partners
      • Partnering with us
    • Global networks
      • Chagas Platform
      • Dengue Alliance
      • HAT Platform
      • HELP Helminth Elimination Platform
      • LEAP Platform
      • redeLEISH Network
    • DNDi worldwide
      • DNDi Switzerland
      • DNDi DRC
      • DNDi Eastern Africa
      • DNDi Japan
      • DNDi Latin America
      • DNDi North America
      • DNDi South Asia
      • DNDi South-East Asia
      • DNDi Southern Africa
  • News & resources
    • News & stories
      • News
      • Stories
      • Statements
      • Viewpoints
      • Social media
      • eNews Newsletter
    • Press
      • Press releases
      • In the media
    • Resources
      • Scientific articles
      • Our publications
      • Videos
    • Events
  • About us
    • About
      • Who we are
      • How we work
      • Our strategy
      • Our donors
      • Annual reports
    • Our people
      • Our leadership
      • Our governance
      • Contact us
    • Work with us
      • Working at DNDi
      • Job opportunities
      • Requests for proposal
  • Donate
Home > Press releases

Fundación MEDINA, DNDi, and Institut Pasteur Korea announce new funding from “la Caixa” Health Research for research partnership to discover new natural products against leishmaniasis and Chagas disease

Home > Press releases

Fundación MEDINA, DNDi, and Institut Pasteur Korea announce new funding from “la Caixa” Health Research for research partnership to discover new natural products against leishmaniasis and Chagas disease

Researchers in operation of the cell-based screening platform in the biosafety level-2(BSL-2) laboratory
28 Sep 2020
Share on twitter
Share on facebook
Share on linkedin
Share on email
Share on print
  • English
    • English
    • Español
    • 한국어

Fundación MEDINA, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and Institut Pasteur Korea have been awarded a grant of EUR 995,000 from “la Caixa” Health Research 2020 programme to identify novel natural products as potential effective treatments for leishmaniasis and Chagas disease.

Leishmaniasis and Chagas disease are neglected tropical diseases that cause thousands of deaths worldwide each year. They primarily affect poor and marginalized communities in developing countries but are an emerging health problem in developed countries as well. New therapeutic solutions are urgently needed for both diseases given the many drawbacks of current treatments, including increasing drug resistance and undesirable side effects.

The MEDINA-DNDi-IPK joint project addresses this challenge by exploring the chemical diversity of MEDINA’s vast microbial natural products libraries, using the whole-cell phenotypic screening assays of Institut Pasteur Korea. In addition, a new image-based “parasite painting” assay with cutting-edge cell-imaging technology will be developed at Institut Pasteur Korea to identify new modes of action of novel compounds and to select the most promising compounds for further development.

‘We believe that this unique partnership and our multidisciplinary approach is an excellent opportunity to strengthen the relatively empty preclinical R&D pipeline for both diseases. Together, we are proposing an innovative drug discovery approach exploring natural products libraries in neglected tropical diseases,’ said Dr Olga Genilloud, Scientific Director at Fundación MEDINA and Project Leader.

‘We are very excited to launch this new discovery project using a brand-new technology that will give us new data on parasites’ action mechanisms,’ said Jean-Robert Ioset, Senior Discovery Manager at DNDi. ‘Although they have a strong track record in anti-infectives research and development, natural products are still underexplored for neglected tropical diseases.’

PhenomicScreen™ cellular model for Chagas disease after in-house software analysis – Photo credit: Institut Pasteur Korea

‘This project is truly a global collaboration between the leaders in field of natural product discovery, high content/high throughput screening and NTD drug discovery. We believe this synergistic and complementary efforts will lead to the discovery of novel natural product-based anti-kinetoplastids drugs,’ said Dr Joo Hwan No, Group Head of Leishmania Research Laboratory at Institut Pasteur Korea.

The three-year funding from this highly competitive program from La Caixa reinforces the ongoing collaboration between three global leaders. Coordinated by Fundación MEDINA, the project will leverage existing preliminary data from the established partnership and take advantage of the joint expertise of the consortium, which brings together a centre of excellence in natural product drug discovery (Fundación MEDINA), a pioneer in image-based high-content screening with kinetoplastids (Institut Pasteur Korea), and an international not-for-profit research organization developing new treatments for people living with neglected diseases (DNDi).

About leishmaniasis

Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease that threatens an estimated one billion people worldwide. It is a complex disease that presents in several forms – visceral, cutaneous, mucocutaneous, and post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis – and is caused by 20 different Leishmania parasite species. An estimated 700,000 to 1 million new cases of leishmaniasis occur annually, with 20,000 to 30,000 deaths. Treating leishmaniasis is difficult, as it depends on several factors, including the form of the disease, other co-existing infections, the parasite species, and geographic location, as treatment responses differ by region. Existing treatments for leishmaniasis are long, toxic, and/or expensive, and are not adapted to patients or their contexts. The development of next-generation treatments for all forms of leishmaniasis in all regions should therefore be a priority.

About Chagas disease

Caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi and transmitted by biting insects known as ‘kissing bugs’ that are infected with the parasite, Chagas disease is endemic in 21 countries in the Americas, although the migration of people who carry the illness can take it to other parts of the world. The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) estimates that Chagas affects approximately 6-7 million people, with 30,000 new cases and 14,000 deaths per year. Additionally, there are 70 million people at risk of contracting the disease. As people typically show no symptoms for many years, most are unaware they have Chagas. Up to a third of people with Chagas will suffer heart damage that becomes evident only many years later and can lead to progressive heart failure or sudden death. Chagas kills more people in Latin America each year than any other parasitic disease, including malaria.

About Fundación MEDINA

Fundación MEDINA is a not-for-profit research organization established as a Spanish public-private partnership between Merck Sharp, Dohme de España S.A., the Regional Government of Andalusia and the University of Granada to discover new drugs for unmet medical needs. Fundación MEDINA is a recognized international leader in natural products discovery and develops collaborative programs with academic and industrial partners worldwide. Taking advantage of its unique microbial natural products libraries and cutting-edge technology screening platforms, MEDINA is actively developing drug discovery programs focused among others on the identification of new drugs for infectious diseases, including neglected tropical diseases. (www.medinadisovery.com)

About DNDi

A not-for-profit research and development organization, DNDi works to develop new treatments for people living with neglected diseases, notably leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis), Chagas disease, filarial infections, mycetoma, paediatric HIV, and hepatitis C. Since its inception in 2003, DNDi has delivered eight new treatments, including new drug combinations for leishmaniasis, a paediatric formulation of a treatment for Chagas disease, two fixed-dose antimalarials, and DNDi’s first successfully developed new chemical entity, fexinidazole, for the treatment of both stages of sleeping sickness. Learn more at dndi.org.

About Institut Pasteur Korea

Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) is an infectious disease-focused research institute located in the Rep. of Korea. With the aim of addressing unmet global health issues, IPK utilizes its proprietary cell-based screening platforms to understand disease mechanisms and accelerate the development of new treatments. IPK is a member of the Institut Pasteur International Network (IPIN), constituting 32 member institutes in 25 countries across the five continents, where it plays a key role in driving early drug discovery. By providing fundamental technologies to bridge between Korean and international bio-pharma science and promoting multi-disciplinary projects, IPK stands at the forefront of drug discovery research that contributes to the scientific, intellectual, and technical resources of the Rep. of Korea. (www.ip-korea.org)

Press contacts

MEDINA
Olga Genilloud
Olga.genilloud@medinaandalucia.es
Phone (+34) 958993965

DNDi
Frédéric Ojardias
fojardias@dndi.org
Phone (+41) 79 431 6216 

IPK
Jieun Kim
jieun.kim@ip-korea.org
Phone (+82) 3180188041

Photo credit: Institut Pasteur Korea

Funding Partnership Drug discovery Chagas disease Cutaneous leishmaniasis Visceral leishmaniasis

Read, watch, share

Loading...
Patient with healthcare worker in hospital
Press releases
30 Mar 2023

Eumycetoma: DNDi welcomes Japan’s GHIT Fund support for registration of new treatment for deeply neglected fungal disease

Davide Paparo and Ian Hausler with their thermotherapy device "CLARA"
Stories
16 Mar 2023

Cutaneous leishmaniasis: Swiss students develop innovative thermotherapy device for safer treatment of ‘flesh-eating parasite’

Stories
8 Mar 2023

Highlighting gender-based treatment gaps on International Women’s Day: Mary Alamak’s story

DNDi-GARDP Southern Africa director, Carol Ruffell (left), presents the December 2022 edition of HIV Nursing Matters and the 2022 paediatric ARV dosing chart to Bénédicte Schutz, Monaco’s Director of International Cooperation (centre), and Yordanos Pasquier, Monaco’s Deputy Director of International Cooperation (right).
News
3 Mar 2023

Working together to ensure optimal treatment for children living with HIV in South Africa

Nurse with patient
Press releases
1 Mar 2023

Fiocruz and DNDi sign strategic alliance agreement

Statements
28 Feb 2023

DNDi’s submission to the Technical Assessment component of the first Global Stocktake

Statements
22 Feb 2023

DNDi comments on the zero draft of the WHO CA+ for consideration of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body at INB4 & 5

Hat Platform Newsletter N°22 screenshot
Publications
22 Feb 2023

HAT Platform Newsletter No. 22

VIEW ALL

Help neglected patients

To date, we have delivered twelve new treatments, saving millions of lives.

Our goal is to deliver 25 new treatments in our first 25 years. You can help us get there. 

GIVE NOW
DNDi - Best Science for the Most Neglected 20 Years
Facebook-f
Twitter
Instagram
Linkedin-in
Youtube
International non-profit developing safe, effective, and affordable treatments for the most neglected patients.

Learn more

  • Diseases
  • Neglected tropical diseases
  • R&D portfolio
  • Policy advocacy

Get in touch

  • Our offices
  • Contact us
  • Integrity Line

Support us

  • Donate
  • Subscribe to eNews

Work with us

  • Join research networks
  • Jobs
  • RFPs
  • Terms of Use   
  •   Acceptable Use Policy   
  •   Privacy Policy   
  •   Cookie Policy   
  •   Our policies   

  • Except for images, films and trademarks which are subject to DNDi’s Terms of Use, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Switzerland License   
We use cookies to track our audience and improve our content. By clicking 'Accept All', you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Click on 'Customize' to accept only some cookies.
Customize
REJECT ACCEPT ALL
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement1 yearSet by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category .
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
CookieLawInfoConsent1 yearRecords the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.
PHPSESSIDsessionThis cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
CookieDurationDescription
elementorneverThis cookie is used by the website's WordPress theme. It allows the website owner to implement or change the website's content in real-time.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThe _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.
_ga_16Q5RH3XRG2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics.
_gat_UA-10302561-11 minuteA variation of the _gat cookie set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to allow website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. The pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to.
_gid1 dayInstalled by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesHotjar sets this cookie to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.
_hjFirstSeen30 minutesHotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user.
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesHotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit.
_hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesHotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit.
_hjSession_112884430 minutesHotjar sets this cookie.
_hjSessionUser_11288441 yearHotjar sets this cookie.
CONSENT2 yearsYouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data.
Targeting
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo