Screening Chagas disease

Continuing work with the Institute Pasteur Korea, University of Dundee, and Nagasaki University to identify new T. cruzi active hit series using its well-established high-throughput screening platform yielded promising results. Four new collections of compounds from both synthetic and natural product origins have been identified, and two new GHIT awards allowed for the initiation of new screening collaborations with Shionogi and the Kitasato Institute. High-throughput screening of compounds in the 60K BINDS/University of Osaka collection and the Fraunhofer IME 5K natural product collection have been completed. Evaluation of the MMV HGL2 compound library was completed, with ten promising new chemical series identified.

DNDi continued to work with the Institute Pasteur Korea, University of Dundee, and Nagasaki University to identify new T. cruzi active hit series using its well-established high-throughput screening platform. New collections of both synthetic and natural product origin compounds acquired from commercial suppliers were screened to identify compounds with promising characteristics.

DNDi maintained a similar screening strategy over 2022 to identify new T. cruzi active hit series. Recently, Nagasaki University has developed high-throughput screening capacity against T. cruzi, with DNDi providing technical advisory support. This additional screening capacity will primarily be used to access and screen compound collections available from partners in Japan, with a focus on natural products.

Several new collections originating from pharmaceutical companies, not-for-profit organizations, research partners, and commercial providers were identified, contractually and physically accessed, and screened at Institut Pasteur Korea and University of Dundee. The emphasis has been on chemical novelty, notably through screening collections of natural origin and careful in silico examination of the chemical content of the libraries where possible. 

Several new collections originating from pharmaceutical and research partners were identified, contractually and physically accessed, and screened. Discussions continued with various pharmaceutical companies, not-for-profit organisations, and other entities to obtain access to new collections to keep building our screening pipeline. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly delayed the activities of almost all our screening partners from mid-March 2020 through the end of the year.

To identify new hit series that could be progressed and become new drug candidates for Chagas disease, DNDi  tests chemical compounds for activity against Trypanosoma cruzi. High-throughput screening of compounds from natural product and synthetic compound collections from partners or commercial suppliers have been conducted, and hits have been identified and are currently being progressed.

More than 20 novel series were identified in 2017 and are currently being progressed.