Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases
University of Georgia
When Ph.D. trainee Justin Wiedeman started investigating the role of protein kinase TbCK1.2, an enzyme found near the flagellum of Trypanosoma brucei, he quickly ran into a problem common to parasitologists. He needed a better tool for visualizing the membranes of this parasite. Since none of the membrane probes on the market quite did the …
Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that dormancy of the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi prevents effective drug treatment for Chagas disease, which kills more than 50,000 people each year in Central and South America and is a growing threat in the United States and Europe. The disease infects an estimated 6 million to 7 million …
Several species of Plasmodium parasites cause malaria in humans and results in nearly 450,000 deaths annually. The deadliest of these species is Plasmodium falciparum. Unfortunately, it is also drug resistance to many of the currently available treatments. Vasant Muralidharan, assistant professor in the department of cellular biology, and his research group at The Center for …
Silvia Moreno and her research team at the University of Georgia’s Center for Tropical & Emerging Global Diseases and Department of Cellular Biology provided evidence that it is possible to develop a drug combination that acts synergistically by inhibiting host and parasite enzymes in a recently published article in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. What is …
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that has a disproportionate effect in poor and underdeveloped countries without access to western medicine. According to the WHO’s World Malaria Report, there were 212 million new cases of malaria worldwide in 2015 and an estimated 429,000 deaths. Malaria is caused by the Plasmodium parasite. Plasmodium falciparum is the deadliest of …
Athens, Ga. – Infectious disease scientists from research institutions including the University of Georgia have reported the discovery and early validation of a drug that shows promise for treating cryptosporidiosis, a diarrheal disease that is a major cause of child mortality and for which there is no vaccine or effective treatment. “Cryptosporidiosis is largely …
