Virtual Screening (VS) and High-Throughput Screening (HTS) integration in discovery of new drugs against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)

• Grant number: 17/01181-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: March 20, 2017
• End date: September 19, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Pharmacy
• Principal Investigator: Gustavo Henrique Goulart Trossini
• Grantee: Drielli Gomes Vital Fujii
• Supervisor: Jair Lage de Siqueira Neto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas (FCF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/15650-0 - Application of Structure-Based Drug Design in parasite cysteine protease inhibitor search (cruzain (T. cruzi and CPB (Leishmanioses)), BP.DR

Abstract

Neglected diseases are caused by parasites and infectious agents and affect mainly people in poor areas being prevalent in 149 countries and causing 534,000 deaths per year. Among neglected diseases we can highlight Chagas Disease and Leishmaniasis, both have a high rate of morbidity and mortality and both are addressed in this project in the search of new drugs against a NTD. Nowadays, the search for new drugs involves the selection of biological pathways essential for parasite survival, in this class of parasites we can suggest the cysteine proteases, a proteases family present in Trypanosoma cruzi and and Leishmania ssp. In order to obtain a new agent against Neglected Disease in this work we proposed a partnership to evaluate a series of compounds obtained by synthesis and Virtual Screening studies against parasitic proteases focused on Neglected Disease, using biological inhibitory assays, and then a structure-activity relationship (SAR) study to development new compounds.