Prof. Dr. D'Antonio - Breaking Down Chagas' Disease Drug Discovery Efforts | ChemTalks 6 | ChemU

Welcome to ChemTalks - online conference where scientists present advancements of their researches and give talks on the cutting-edge scientific themes. Today our speaker is Prof. Dr. Edward D'Antonio from the University of South Carolina Beaufort.

Title: "Early-Stage Drug Discovery for Chagas’ Disease and Efforts Toward Drug-Target Validation of Trypanosoma cruzi Glucokinase".

Abstract: Throughout the world there are over 6+ million people that have Chagas’ disease, a neglected tropical disease caused by the parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. This pathogen has a "druggable" enzyme called glucokinase (TcGlcK) that is a potential drug-target based on its role in producing G6P (an important metabolite of various metabolic pathways). An urgent need exists in identifying new therapeutics as the clinically available options such as benznidazole and nifurtimox give rise to undesirable side effects. In the past decade, multiple studies from my laboratory have demonstrated that various classes of strong TcGlcK inhibitors also act as anti-T. cruzi compounds, exhibiting a tight correlation. This foundation of research helps support the concept that TcGlcK is a target; however, we have recently commenced another project to determine TcGlcK's essentiality by employing a bump mutagenesis approach.

Don't forget that all our videos are useful not only for the undergraduate and postgraduate chemists, biochemists, pharmacists and medics, but also for the final years of school students, taking exam in chemistry on IB, SAT, A-level, NEET, and JEE.

Our Website and Forum:
https://chem-u.org/
https://forum.chem-u.org