Transleish Deriving marine active ingredients from sea squirts, corals and sponges to combat a tropical disease

Leismania donovani is a parasite responsible for a fatal tropical disease – visceral leishmaniasis. Transmitted to humans essentially by bites from infected sandflies or mosquitoes, leishmaniasis can be contracted in many tropical and subtropical countries as well as around the perimeter of the Mediterranean.

The Transleish project will perfect new drugs to combat leishmaniasis using marine-sourced molecules from different families of corals, sponges and sea squirts.

The project will seek to identify new compounds and to evaluate the active proportion in the organism in relation to the amount absorbed. The project will involve medically analysing these active compounds to develop and apply new strategies for protein analysis.

These protein kinases will be validated as potential target treatments using biochemical and genetic approaches.