Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
New Web site organizes infectious diseases
May 8, 2007
By Ashley Russell
Last month, a UW infectious-disease expert unveiled a new Web site designed to simplify the discovery of new treatments for infectious diseases in developing countries in Geneva, Switzerland.
Wesley Van Voorhis, a professor at the Department of Medicine and adjunct professor of pathobiology, joined members of the World Health Organization at their headquarters to introduce the site, titled Drug Target Prioritization Database.
The site catalogues an extensive list of proteins, or drug targets, that exist in whole genomes of parasites, which will increase the drug discovery for tropical diseases such as tuberculosis, Chagas disease, leprosy and malaria.
?Malaria kills a child every 20 seconds,? Van Voorhis said. ?There are several new drugs that we are working on and we are really close.?
A breakthrough in the fight against malaria came packaged in a small blue pill. The same protein targeted by Viagra, a drug used to treat impotence, is found in malaria parasites.
Van Voorhis has been working with drug research for about 17 years and became a leader of this initiative due to his outstanding research, interest in drug targets and the desire to be a part of this groundbreaking database.
He collaborated with Christophe Verlinde, associate professor of biochemistry, who specializes in analyzing three-dimensional aspects of protein structures and has been working with tropical diseases since the early 1990s.
Verlinde said the database is not just storage for information; scientists can also create lists of criteria, choosing from thousands of proteins that are essential to certain parasites, within a matter of seconds.
?Without the database, it would take at least two months to do the research,? Verlinde said.
Though pharmaceutical firms already have access to a library of chemicals that may counteract the disease pathogens found in tropical diseases, the database fills in the blanks with a comprehensive list of proposed and validated drug targets, according to a press release on the database.
The database took about 18 months to develop, and most of that time was dedicated to gathering of information.
?We did a lot of trial and error at first,? Van Voorhis said.
The site gained popularity immediately; two days after its launch, it received thousands of visitors.
?There were about 10,000 hits from everywhere in the world, including the developing world,? Van Voorhis said.
The creation of the database offers hope that treatments will soon be available to millions of people with infectious diseases worldwide.
?It?s high time the world wakes up and does something about these diseases,? Verlinde said.
http://thedaily.washington.edu/article/2007/5/8/newWebSiteOrganizesInfectiousDiseases
The Drug Target Prioritization Database may be accessed at
www.TDRtargets.org
May 8, 2007
By Ashley Russell
Last month, a UW infectious-disease expert unveiled a new Web site designed to simplify the discovery of new treatments for infectious diseases in developing countries in Geneva, Switzerland.
Wesley Van Voorhis, a professor at the Department of Medicine and adjunct professor of pathobiology, joined members of the World Health Organization at their headquarters to introduce the site, titled Drug Target Prioritization Database.
The site catalogues an extensive list of proteins, or drug targets, that exist in whole genomes of parasites, which will increase the drug discovery for tropical diseases such as tuberculosis, Chagas disease, leprosy and malaria.
?Malaria kills a child every 20 seconds,? Van Voorhis said. ?There are several new drugs that we are working on and we are really close.?
A breakthrough in the fight against malaria came packaged in a small blue pill. The same protein targeted by Viagra, a drug used to treat impotence, is found in malaria parasites.
Van Voorhis has been working with drug research for about 17 years and became a leader of this initiative due to his outstanding research, interest in drug targets and the desire to be a part of this groundbreaking database.
He collaborated with Christophe Verlinde, associate professor of biochemistry, who specializes in analyzing three-dimensional aspects of protein structures and has been working with tropical diseases since the early 1990s.
Verlinde said the database is not just storage for information; scientists can also create lists of criteria, choosing from thousands of proteins that are essential to certain parasites, within a matter of seconds.
?Without the database, it would take at least two months to do the research,? Verlinde said.
Though pharmaceutical firms already have access to a library of chemicals that may counteract the disease pathogens found in tropical diseases, the database fills in the blanks with a comprehensive list of proposed and validated drug targets, according to a press release on the database.
The database took about 18 months to develop, and most of that time was dedicated to gathering of information.
?We did a lot of trial and error at first,? Van Voorhis said.
The site gained popularity immediately; two days after its launch, it received thousands of visitors.
?There were about 10,000 hits from everywhere in the world, including the developing world,? Van Voorhis said.
The creation of the database offers hope that treatments will soon be available to millions of people with infectious diseases worldwide.
?It?s high time the world wakes up and does something about these diseases,? Verlinde said.
http://thedaily.washington.edu/article/2007/5/8/newWebSiteOrganizesInfectiousDiseases
The Drug Target Prioritization Database may be accessed at
www.TDRtargets.org