Polysaccharide biosynthesis as a new drug target in Leishmania parasites

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/400035

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

Leishmania are protozoan parasites that cause a number of important diseases in humans, afflicting more than 12 million people worldwide. There are currently few drugs that target infectious disease causing stages of these parasites. We have recently shown that Leishmania parasites accumulate a highly unusual sugar polymer when they infect mammalian cells, which appears to be important for infectivity. In this proposal , we will investigate how this sugar polymer is made, identify enzymes involved in its synthesis and develop new chemical tools for generating highly specific inhibitors of Leishmania sugar biosynthesis. This project will provide new insights into processes that are essential for the survival and infectivity of an improtant group of human pathogens, and lead to the development of new classes of enzyme inhibitors with anti-parasite activity.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2006

End Date: 01-01-2008

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $422,517.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Medical Biochemistry: Carbohydrates

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

carbohydrate chemistry | drug design | leishmaniasis | parasitology | polysaccharide biosynthesis | protozoan | tropical parasitology

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