Problem Statement
Drug discovery in Africa faces high costs and complexity. Dr. Harigua's research introduces a platform combining bioinformatics, AI, biology, and biochemistry to enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness, targeting novel treatments for Leishmaniases and Malaria.
Progress Highlights
We consolidated our expertise in Computer-Aided Drug Discovery, leveraging Bioinformatics, Artificial Intelligence, and Computational computing. We also consolidated existing capacities in cellular biology and drug candidate screening. We grew into a multidisciplinary team that learned to collaborate across the frontiers of scientific fields.
Key Findings
Our research identified nine novel anti-Leishmania drug candidates, out of which three are under preclinical studies/validation. We intend to file multiple patents of our findings. We have also developed highly performing AI algorithms for novel drug identification, deployed through an open platform, CidalsDB: https://cidalsdb.streamlit.app/
Potential Impact
We seek to bring novel drug candidates against infectious diseases of interest in Africa (Leishmania, Malaria, etc) into the market. We believe strongly in how computational approaches, AI in particular, can revolutionize Drug Discovery. We work on growing our expertise and technologies into a recoverable product.
Summary
Drug discovery in biomedical research in Africa is characterised with high cost, long duration and complexity. Introducing computational approaches, namely bioinformatics and artificial intelligence results in higher performances, lower costs and faster outcomes of the process. Dr Harigua’s research consists in implementing a platform for computer-aided drug discovery that combines bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, biology and biochemistry to identify novel therapeutics against Leishmaniases and Malaria.
Grantee Description
Dr Emna Harigua is a researcher at the Institut Pasteur de Tunis (IPT) in Tunisia. She did her Ph. D at Institut Pasteur in Paris (France) in collaboration with the Laboratory of Molecular Epidemiology and Experimental Pathology (IPT). She defended her Ph. D in 2016 and her doctoral work focused on the identification of novel anti-Leishmania molecules using computer-aided drug discovery approaches, along with the development of novel approaches for protein surface mapping.
Dr Harigua has the long-term aspiration of mastering cutting-edge technologies that combine bioinformatics and artificial intelligence to advance the field of computer-aided drug discovery with a clear focus on infectious diseases of interest to the African communities. She also advocates for women in STEM mentoring and open science.
Project: BIND: Bioinformatics and artificial intelligence for Infectious Diseases drug discovery research platform
Through the BIND project, Dr Harigua will capitalise on her expertise in bioinformatics, artificial intelligence and drug discovery to deliver novel therapeutics against Leishmaniases and Malaria. A multi-disciplinary platform associating cutting-edge computational technologies, namely bioinformatics, molecular modelling and artificial intelligence to experimental validation of the identified drug candidates will be implemented. The proposed approach aims at enhancing the drug discovery process, making it faster, less costly and more efficient. High throughput virtual screenings will be performed to identify novel inhibitors of key proteins of the parasites and molecular docking simulations will be used to decipher protein-ligand interactions and mechanisms associated with multi-drug resistance. This innovative project is an elegant approach to tackle the need for novel therapeutics against diseases heavily affecting the African continent.
