News
Vienna, June 05, 2024
The second meeting of the eWHORM consortium took place in Vienna at the beginning of June this year.
Participants from Germany, Gabon, Cameroon, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland were represented in person.
Just over a year into the project, the first significant successes have been achieved. A master protocol for the planned clinical trial was submitted to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). This harmonized protocol makes it possible to conduct a multi-center clinical trial in Gabon, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania for four different helminth (worm) diseases.
During the two-day meeting, the next steps of the large adaptive clinical trial were discussed. Among other things, important steps that need to be taken for the protocol to be accepted in the target countries were discussed. There were also presentations on topics such as capacity building, virtual microscopy and database and data management.
For more information on the second General Assembly of eWHORM click here:
https://ewhorm.org/news/ewhorm-partners-gather-in-vienna-austria-for-their-first-progress-meeting
Award for drug research into river blindness and elephantiasis
A∙WOL team involving the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology receives Royal Society of Chemistry award.
The A∙WOL team has been awarded the 2024 Horizon Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry for the discovery of potential fast-acting, highly specific anti-Wolbachia candidates for the oral treatment of human filariasis. The team is a collaboration between the University of Liverpool, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London, University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, as well as industry partners from Astra Zeneca and Eisai Ltd, which has been funded by the Gates Foundation for many years. Prof. Achim Hörauf and Prof. Marc Hübner from the UKB and the University of Bonn are being honored for their contribution in the fight against rare tropical diseases.
Lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) and onchocerciasis (river blindness) lead to severe disabilities and affect more than 72 million people worldwide. These two neglected tropical diseases are caused by long-lived (10-14 years) parasitic threadworms. In Africa alone, more than 21 million people are infected with the nematode Onchocerca volvulus, the causative agent of river blindness. Around one in ten of those affected go blind. The nematodes are dependent on a special type of bacteria, Wolbachia. These can be eliminated with a long-approved drug, doxycycline. "If these bacteria die, the parasite also dies after a few months," says Prof. Achim Hoerauf, an expert in neglected tropical diseases and Director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology at the UKB. He is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) "Life & Health" at the University of Bonn.
His group introduced the therapeutic principle of doxycycline to the treatment of filariasis more than ten years ago. "However, the long treatment period of at least 4 weeks and the contraindication in children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers limits the use of doxycycline for mass treatment," says Prof. Marc Hübner, Head of the Laboratory for Translational Microbiology at the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology at the UKB and member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) "Life & Health" at the University of Bonn.
With corallopyronin A, Prof. Hoerauf's team has found another effective drug candidate to combat these worms, which will enter clinical trials in the next few years with funding from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the Japanese Global Health Inovative Technology (GHIT) Fund. The natural antibiotic corallopyronin A is expected to have shorter treatment times and few side effect.
Hope for new effective mode of action
The A-WOL team's collaborative drug discovery research has led to a first synthetic drug candidate that could offer an even shorter treatment duration compared to current options. The team has also identified other promising targets for new drugs and is working with Astra Zeneca to understand how these new chemical classes can eliminate Wolbachia in the worms. "We are very pleased to receive this award for our joint research, which has yielded a potential first synthetic anti-Wolbachia (AWOL) drug candidate against filarial diseases. The principle works and requires further optimization," says Prof. Hörauf, and Prof. Hübner adds: "Such candidates have the potential to significantly accelerate the elimination of lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis and improve the quality of life of millions of people."
Prof. Gill Reid, President of the Royal Society of Chemistry, congratulates all award winners in the following video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/so6l1LLzhXk
More information is available at
Royal Society of Chemistry :
Universität Bonn :
Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation²:
https://www.immunosensation.de/news/award-for-drug-research-on-river-blindness-and-elephantiasis
Caption: Together with the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London and industrial partners from Astra Zeneca and Eisai Co., Ltd., Prof. Achim Hoerauf (right) and Prof. Marc Hübner (left) and team have been awarded the Horizon Prize by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Picture credits: Collage / University Hospital Bonn
5.6 million Euros in funding for the development of the antibiotic corallopyronin A from the Japanese Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund.
The Corallopyronin A team, led by Prof. Dr. Achim Hörauf, has succeeded in acquiring funding for the further preclinical development of the antibiotic corallopyronin A. In partnership with the Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai, the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research Braunschweig/Saarbrücken and the University of Bonn, the team has put together a research program to successfully take corallopyronin A into clinical phase 1.
please have a look at the links below :
https://www.ghitfund.org/newsroom/press/detail/433/en
https://www.dzif.de/en/new-antibiotic-against-river-blindness-and-lymphatic-filariasis-pathogens
https://idw-online.de/de/image392518
Prof. Hörauf was a guest panelist at the "Europe 2024" conference in Berlin
The "Europe 2024" event - organized by Die Zeit, Handelsblatt, Tagesspiegel and WirtschaftsWoche - took place in Berlin from 19.04.-20.04.2024. Prominent guests such as Chancellor Scholz and Economics Minister Habeck took part in the discussions on European policy in the face of the Ukraine invasion and the second main topic "Health - how can the EU position itself better for the future"
Prof. Hörauf (Director of IMMIP) and Dr. Gitzinger (Bioversys) were invited as discussion partners to the masterclass "Europe as a space for innovation: Together against antimicrobial resistance". Moderated by Alexandra-Corinna Heeser, the discussion focused on the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), its impact on global healthcare and the problem of the lack of development of new antibiotics. Both participants made it clear that we will lose the fight against AMR, especially in Europe, if politicians do not improve the framework conditions for better remuneration of investments in new antibiotics and thus establish new pull mechanisms.
Link to the Pharmazeutische Zeitung report: https://www.pharmazeutische-zeitung.de/wie-koennen-mehr-antibiotika-entwickelt-werden-146361/
Prof. Hörauf's Interview with the German Foundation for World Population (DSW) on NTDs
January 30th is World NTD Day, the day of neglected tropical diseases.
How relevant is the neglect that gives the day its name today?
Achim Hörauf: In my view, this has become more topical again. NTDs have been and are being neglected again, especially due to the coronavirus pandemic. One example: due to the lockdown, local control in the communities, such as the distribution of medication, had been suspended. This then set us back two to four years, if a year had been suspended; and also results in patient fatigue with regard to treatment. In addition, the priorities in research have changed due to Corona, even though many millions of people worldwide live with disabilities and restrictions due to NTDs; and leprosy sufferers even suffer from mutilations. The WHO has just designated noma as the 21st NTD. This is a terrible disease of the oral cavity caused by malnutrition. NTDs are always the first to be neglected due to a lack of advocacy. After Corona, there was already significantly less funding from the USA, and the UK even pulled out completely. And in Germany, too, the BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) has had to accept significant restrictions...Continue reading
Manjo, April 29th, 2024
On the last week of April 2024, Cameroon took center stage for eWHORM as the project partner University of Buea hosted the first LAMP Assay Workshop.
Participants from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Gabon, Germany and Switzerland joined Prof. Wanji’s team at Manjo Medical Research Centre to initiate the training of the field-applicable LAMP assays for the diagnosis of onchocerciasis, loiasis and mansonellosis.
Through this practical training course, Prof. Wanji’s team enhanced the collaboration with all partners attending onsite and online. As an amplification technique that does not require expensive equipment, the LAMP technology will help improve the diagnosis of the above-cited neglected tropical diseases before validation at the clinical trials and thereby set a major milestone for the project’s objectives.
The ultimate goal is to transfer these filarial LAMP assays from Cameroun to DRC (INRB) and Gabon (CERMEL), thereby contributing to their implementation for enhanced filarial detection.
To learn more about eWHORM’s progress visit our webpage and read the new newsletter issue #1
https://www.ewhorm.org/newsletter/eWHORM_Newsletter_Issue1.pdf
Neglected tropical diseases : Pathogens know no borders - Podcast on Spotify
Link : https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/5vVb0M8g6Sw02TOzaTDQ73?utm_source=generator"
In conversation with Dr. Dr. Carsten Köhler, Director of the Competence Center for Tropical Medicine at the University of Tübingen, and Prof. Achim Hörauf, University of Bonn and spokesperson for the German Network against Neglected Tropical Diseases*
1.7 billion people worldwide are at risk from neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). And although one would expect NTDs to be found in faraway countries, the danger is getting closer and closer. Even in Europe, outside their actual areas of origin, isolated outbreaks of NTDs have recently been recorded.
Together with our two guest experts Dr. Dr. Carsten Köhler, Director of the Competence Center and Head of the Global Health Focus Group at the University of Tübingen, and Prof. Achim Hörauf, Director of the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology at the University of Bonn and spokesperson for the German Network against Neglected Tropical Diseases, we shed light on the occasion of World Day against Neglected Tropical Diseases: What are NTDs and where are they found? Why does it affect me? How can the danger be countered in the future and how can I protect myself as an individual?
Partner of the episode is Takeda.
Immunology Day 2024
On 27 April, the annual Immunology Day took place on Münsterplatz in Bonn. Organised by the Cluster of Excellence Immunosensation2, doctoral students from IMMIP were also present this year and were able to inspire young and old with exciting insights into the world of parasitology. They had informative material in the form of posters, but of course also hands-on experiences such as microscopes and parasites. The focus was on our important questions: What are parasites? What do they do in our bodies? Are they really our enemies? What can we learn from them?
Fight Against American Trypanosomiasis
Chagas disease is estimated by the WHO to affect about 6-7 million people. Prof. Achim Hoerauf the Speaker of the German Network for Neglected Tropical Disease and Director IMMIP, was in Machareti, Bolivia to discuss potential collaborations in the fight against American trypanosomiasis.
The Search for New Treatment for River Blindness
The World Health Organization estimates that 1.15 million people have lost their vision due to river blindness, while 220 million require preventive therapy against onchocerciasis. For over 25 years, the Institute of Medical Microbiology Immunology and Parasitology, at the University Hospital Bonn and the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine, in Kumasi Ghana have been conduction clinical trials in river blindness and lymphatic filariasis. Prof. Achim Hoerauf and his long-term research partner and friend Prof. Alexander Debrah filmed a short documentary on their work in Ghana. In addition to showing the work done in the field, positive feedback from the community members is also captured in the documentary.
Development of the antibiotic Corallopyronin A against filariasis
More than 72 million people in the tropics are infected with the nematodes Onchocerca volvulus, Wuchereria bancrofti and Brugia malayi. Infections with these worms can lead to severe dermatitis and blindness or elephantiasis - a disease in which the legs in particular become extremely enlarged. In dogs, a similar parasite can cause life-threatening canine heartworm disease. With the natural compound Corallopyronin A, Prof. Achim Hörauf and his team at the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology (IMMIP) Continue reading...
Code for a Cure: Combating River Blindness with Data & AI
A team of experts at Capgemini, in collaboration with University Hospital Bonn and Amazon Web Services, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that will accelerate the speed of clinical trials aiming to establish new treatments for River Blindness, a neglected tropical disease which affects over 20 million people globally. Currently, the specialist work of clinical trials can only be carried out manually by a handful of global experts, so the winning model could save years of work and speed up the development of new treatments.Continue reading
Prof. Achim Hoerauf was part of the expert pannel at the Science Summit at the UN General Assembly in New York
Prof. Dr. med. Achim Hoerauf, Director IMMIP, was selected to speak at the 9th Science Summit, on the occasion of the 78th UN General Assembly in New York City.
The goal of the summit was to discuss the current critical scientific challenges affecting our planet. The central theme chosen for this year's summit was "The Role of Science in Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."...Continue reading
The 13th new edition of the standard work "Infection Therapy" - edited by Prof. Dr. Achim Hörauf and others in our UKB Newsletter :
