Tuberculosis
is a debilitating infectious disease that is a
serious health threat, particularly in its
multi-drug-resistant forms. We aim to combine
bioinformatics tools and resources with NMR
structural biology to identify and screen new drug
targets against TB.
New Bioinformatics approaches
The
drug discovery process describes several, well
established pipelines. Yet it is still possible to
make improvements. Bioinformatics has an important
role to play in the initial 'virtual screening' of
chemical libraries. But at the end of the day,
physical screening needs to be done and many
'hits' are rejected due to toxicity. We aim to
develop new tools to filter out the potentially
toxic leads at an early stage, leading to a more
efficient and cost effective drug discovery
process.
This
project, together with access to established
methods, will be conducted at IGC, CDFD and CIPF
New Structural Biology approaches
NMR
Spectroscopy provides one of the principal
techniques to physically screen small molecule
libraries. The aim is to discriminate between
'hits' and 'misses' from the virtual screening
stage.
This
project will be carried out at ITQB-UNL and CIPF
with materials supplied by CDFD. CIPF and CDFD
additionally determine tuberculosis protein
structures by NMR and crystallography,
respectively.
Research training
Part
of the MTBSS budget is dedicated to provide access
to existing short, specialized courses (1-2 week
duration) at IGC and ITQB-UNL for Indian students.
More detailed training in methods and techniques
will be offered as 2-month Fellowships to CDFD
students to train at CIPF, IGC or ITQB-UNL, and
for students from these European laboratories to
travel to CDFD.
Towards an improved tuberculosis
treatment
Drug
discovery is a long process. MTBSS will run from
September 2010 to August 2012. After this period,
we hope to offer an expanded project including
Microbiology and Cell Biology groups and increased
training opportunities.