Introduction

The Centre for Drug Discovery for Diseases of the Developing World (CD4W), established as an ad hoc group in 2004, brings together a unique core of researchers at the SBI in Trinity together with colleagues in other Schools and Departments in Trinity and colleagues in NUI Maynooth and on the St James Hospital Campus using cutting edge tools in cell biology (Confocal Microscope Facility) and structural biology (Centre for Structural Biology and Molecular Design) to advance new rationally designed therapeutic agents for Diseases of the Developing World.

This is a multidisciplinary group that is building on a laudable history in this area at Trinity College. The old MRC Ireland laboratory based on the TCD campus pioneered the development of successful drugs for leprosy (clofazimine) and had developed considerable experience in the synthesis of drugs for tuberculosis.

CD4W has links with the “Drug Discovery Group” at the University of Dundee , which has pioneered this approach. The Dundee consortium has successfully raised £8.1 million from the Wellcome Foundation to help discover new drugs to treat some of the world’s most neglected tropical diseases. The diseases, which include African sleeping sickness, Chagas’ disease and leishmaniasis, are among the most neglected in the world, affecting millions of the world’s poorest people and attracting little or no interest from pharmaceutical companies.

New Horizons for Neglected Diseases
A microsymposium to celebrate an Alumnus award by Trinity College to Professor Patrick Brennan.
4th November 2010 [Details] [Timetable]

Trinity College Dublin

Introduction