Discovery of plasmodium inhibitors as clinical candidates to treat Malaria

Abstract

This post-doc will work in collaboration with expert scientists from the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV, www.mmv.org) and have access to a very well organized framework providing an integrated approach to modern drug discovery. The overall goal with MMV is to deliver a clinical candidate to treat Malaria, as defined by the criteria for an MMV Preclinical candidate. Such a compound should have the potential to be developed, in combination, to deliver a single exposure radical cure and prophylaxis or single exposure chemoprotection drug. A clinical candidate broadly speaking needs to have potency against relevant parasites, a low propensity to generate resistance, have oral efficacy in rodent models, good developability, a good safety profile and low cost of goods. MMV will provide the project with quality lead molecules, aligned to a particular Target Product Profile (TPP) of interest. The post-doc will investigate structure-activity relationships in these series in order to further optimize them and deliver drug candidates, as well as to aim to elucidate novel mechanisms of action. (AU)