Title	A SME STREP for Tuberculosis Drug Development
Acronym	TB-DRUG
Contract number	LSH-2005-2.3.0-10
Project type	STREP
EC contribution in Euro	1'945'000 Euro
Starting date	1 December 2006
Duration	36 months

 

 

Tuberculosis causes more deaths world-wide than almost any other infectious agent, with nearly two million deaths per year and devastating impact in developing countries. More effective means of medical intervention are required both to reduce the number of deaths from tuberculosis and to allow more effective treatment of drug-resistant infections. The TB-DRUG project aims to discover novel lead compounds against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, to be developed into products that can alleviate the global burden of tuberculosis, by carefully selecting proteins to be taken into the drug discovery process as novel targets. In anticipation of the significant attrition rate of the drug discovery process, we suggest to include different targets in the earliest stages of drug development, followed by a more focused approach on the most promising candidates in the later stages.

 

The plan of action is to express and purify each protein being targeted using available expression systems, to determine the structure of each protein by X-ray crystallography, to develop biochemical assays suitable for adaptation to high-throughput (HTS) screening, to screen for and identify inhibitors for each protein where a suitable assay has been developed, to assess the effectiveness of the best inhibitors identified against live M. tuberculosis in-vitro.

 

By bringing together scientists from many different disciplines, and by connecting academics with industry research, TB-DRUG establishes an integrated drug discovery and development process. The range of complementary expertise available within the proposed Project, together with a state-of-the-art discovery technology, facilitates the entire process of preclinical drug discovery. The TB-DRUG Consortium strives to have a significant impact in the area of tuberculosis drug development and to contribute to the education of young scientists offering exceptional teaching and training opportunities for post-doctoral fellows and PhD students.