Mike Pollastri receives Ignition Award for Sleeping Sickness Drug Development
The Ignition Award, given by the Boston University Office of Technology Development in October 2008 will advance Dr. Pollastri in his goal of accelerating the production of drugs for parasitic diseases such as trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) endemic in the world's poorest countries.
His aim is to find a substance that will kill the blood parasite, T. brucei, which causes the disease and which is spread by the bite of the tsetse fly. Certain genetic markers in T. brucei may serve as flags to signal what compounds may be effective. Dr. Pollastri plans to synthesize substances known to act on human genetic markers similar to those found in T. brucei. The candidate compounds will be tested for their ability to kill or inhibit the growth of cells from the parasite. If this method proves effective in accelerating the production of a sleeping sickness drug, Dr. Pollastri's goal is to apply the platform to other parasitic diseases, such as river blindness and malaria, that are often neglected in pharmaceutical research.
To read the article in BU Today, .
January 2009