Manu De Rycker

@ddu-dundee.bsky.social @dndi.org

‘Kissing bug’ disease should be treated as endemic in US, scientists say People in at least eight states have been infected with Chagas, new report says, amid low awareness of disease

#Chagas disease remains very neglected, and not only in the US, in spite of an estimated 8 million people being infected with T. cruzi. We, and our collaborators, aim to develop new medicines, but this is becoming increasingly challenging due to lack of funding.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Great opportunity to join our multi-partner collaboration to develop much needed new #antifungal drugs!

#jobs, #drugdiscovery, #Cryptococcus, #Candida

@mrccmm.bsky.social @ddu-dundee.bsky.social @labwyllie.bsky.social @glaxosmithkline.bsky.social

Our initial goal is to generate 2 pre-clinical candidates for cryptococcal meningitis suitable for low- and middle-income settings and ideally with broad-spectrum antifungal potential.

Very excited to work with our partners and develop much needed new antifungals that target novel mechanisms.

£17.9m research grant to discover new treatments for fungal diseases A team of leading infectious disease scientists from academia and industry have been awarded £17.9 million to identify new drugs to treat fungal infections

Delighted to announce a £17.9 million award from @wellcometrust.bsky.social for the development of new antifungal treatments to a consortium of @ddu-dundee.bsky.social, @labwyllie.bsky.social, @mrccmm.bsky.social and GSK.

#Cryptococcus #Candida #drugdiscovery #antifungal 🧪

tinyurl.com/wywtkpsx

Structure–activity relationships of 1,5-dihydro-2H-benzo[b][1,4]diazepine-2,4(3H)-diones as inhibitors of Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas disease, caused by infection with the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), is responsible for a large health burden with around 6–8 million people infected globally. The current dru...

Open Access version is available here: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Structure–activity relationships of 1,5-dihydro-2H-benzo[b][1,4]diazepine-2,4(3H)-diones as inhibitors of Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas disease, caused by infection with the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), is responsible for a large health burden with around 6–8 million people infected globally. The current dru...

Great to have a latest #Chagas disease drug discovery paper published in @rsc.org MedChem: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

This work highlights how we decide to progress or terminate series, and hopefully provides some useful approaches and lessons.

@ddu-dundee.bsky.social 🧪 #NTD #drugdiscovery

Please repost: We have a postdoc position in Antifungal Immunity Research available to study T cell responses and fungal sensitization in atopic dermatitis. @lableibundgut.bsky.social @neil-gow.bsky.social @mrccmm.bsky.social
For more details, visit: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

Please repost: We have a postdoc position in Fungal Cell Wall Research available to study the Malassezia-host interaction interface in the context of atopic dermatitis. @lableibundgut.bsky.social @neil-gow.bsky.social @mrccmm.bsky.social
For more details, visit: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

YouTube video by Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) The Children of the Sierra

We're proud to share our new short film shot in Colombia’s #SierraNevada where the Indigenous Wiwa people live with some of the highest rates of #Chagas disease in the world.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIo7...

A Life for Global Health: Book Launch Celebrates Marcel Tanner’s Legacy Over 200 guests gathered at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) in Allschwil today to celebrate the launch of Marcel Tanner’s biography. The festive event...

Yesterday, over 200 guests joined us at Swiss TPH to celebrate the legacy in of our former Director, Marcel Tanner, at the launch of his biography.

As #GlobalHealth funding declines & partnerships face pressure, the event served as a reminder to work together to ensure continued progress in health.

Petition An Open Letter to Keir Starmer We, the undersigned, strongly advise against the proposed changes to the UK immigration system of May 12, 2025, and your associated rhetoric. We are UK-based academics.....

My colleague @mgerver.bsky.social has created this open letter to Keir Starmer opposing the measures announced in last week's Immigration White Paper, on economic, political and moral grounds.

Open to all academics/researchers to sign.

molliegerver.weebly.com/petition.html

Dundee researchers to tackle dangerous parasitic disease New funding has been awarded to researchers from the University of Dundee.

Also see the article in the Herald today: www.heraldscotland.com/news/2505132...

Happy to announce that today we start a new #Chagas drug discovery project, funded by MRC @ukri.org. In this project we will be carrying out lead optimisation on a series of squalene synthase inhibitors. More info at: gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref...
🧪 @ddu-dundee.bsky.social #UniversityOfDundee

Funding cuts impact access to tuberculosis (TB) services for millions.

Early reports to WHO from the 30 highest #tuberculosis (TB)-burden countries confirm that funding cuts from foreign aid, particularly from USAID, are already dismantling essential TB services.

Without urgent action, these setbacks will reverse decades of progress to #EndTB 🔗 bit.ly/4kvsu2i

Great opportunity to come and be part of our #tuberculosis drug discovery team. This position will be responsible for integrating data from our #TB collaborators with our internal results (medchem, structural biology and pharmacokinetics). #drugdiscovery, #jobs, #science 🧪

Research Fellow (110168-0225) at University of Warwick An academic position as a Research Fellow (110168-0225) is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunities.

Opening for a post-doctoral position in Michael Lewis’ lab at @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social. Great opportunity for those interested in working on Trypanosoma cruzi biology and #Chagas pathogenesis! 🧪 #jobs, #NTD, #Trypanosoma

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMA372/r...

Bölët Mouna | Ending Sleeping Sickness in Guinea Bölët Mouna means ‘sleeping sickness no more’ in Guinea’s national language Susu and tells the story of how research, innovation, and science are ending the the nightmare of sleeping sickness in Guinea. In January 2025 Guinea announced that it had eliminated sleeping sickness as a public health problem. This is the first disease that the country can claim to have eliminated and a major milestone in the Africa-wide campaign to eliminate sleeping sickness. The National Sleeping Sickness Programme in Guinea and its international partners – among them the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and the Institute Pasteur – have used all the tools at their disposal to achieve this milestone: small ‘tiny traps’ that dot the mangrove coasts of Guinea, rapid diagnostic tests, and revolutionary new medicines that are changing how doctors treat their patients. Read more about this achievement: https://stories.dndi.org/boletmouna/ Regarder en français: https://youtu.be/0S-ZSNcQEvY The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) is an international non-profit developing safe, effective, and affordable treatments for the most neglected patients. https://dndi.org

🎉 This #WorldNTDDay we celebrate Guinea for successfully eliminating sleeping sickness! 👏

📽️ Watch our movie, created in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, @ird-fr.bsky.social and Institut Pasteur de Guinée produced by Moronga Films. bit.ly/guineafilm-en

#EndTheNeglect #BeatNTDs

WHO statement on potential global threat to people living with HIV

🧵 STATEMENT: WHO expresses deep concern on the implications of the immediate funding pause for #HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries.

These programmes provide access to life-saving HIV therapy to more than 30 million people worldwide.

Read more bit.ly/42yxxIz

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Working at DNDi | DNDi At DNDi, our work begins with our people: we aim to recruit people who both reflect and understand the diversity of needs and experiences of those we serve.

Opportunity for #DrugDiscovery data scientist at DNDi (Rio de Janeiro Brazil) ref: 2025-1199 #DataScience #cheminformatics #NTD #infection #Chagas #leishmaniasis #HepC #dengue 🧪
careers-dndi.icims.com/jobs/1199/di...

Hopefully this data will help with understanding and tackling Chagas disease.

Great collaboration with @thomasottosson.bsky.social!

@ddu-dundee.bsky.social

#Chagas disease, #drugdiscovery, #NTD

The Trypanosoma cruzi cell atlas; a single-cell resource for understanding parasite population heterogeneity and differentiation. Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, exhibits a complex life cycle with multiple hosts, stages and differentiation steps. We present a complete cell atlas for the T. cruzi life cy...

New version of our #Trypanosoma cruzi pre-print is now online. Includes new analysis on UTR complexity and reveals cell-specific repertoires for surface protein families, which may play an important role in the immune evasion strategy of this pathogen.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Pharmacological and structural understanding of the Trypanosoma cruzi proteasome provides key insights for developing site-specific inhibitors The proteasome is considered an excellent drug target for many infectious diseases as well as cancer. Challenges with robust and safe supply of proteasomes from infectious agents, lack of structural information, and complex pharmacology due to multiple active sites have hampered progress in the infectious disease space. We recombinantly expressed the proteasome of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, and demonstrate pharmacological equivalence to the native T. cruzi proteasome.

Great to see the final version of our latest paper now published! We recombinantly produced the #Trypanosoma cruzi #proteasome, determined its cryo-EM structure, revealed substrate promiscuity and generated multiple mutants for better pharmacological understanding. www.jbc.org/article/S002... 🧪

For anybody with an interest in cryptococcal meningitis. #cryptococcus #meningitis #fungal 🧪

Science’s 2024 Breakthrough of the Year is lenacapavir, an injectable drug that demonstrated remarkable success at preventing HIV infection with one shot every 6 months. The drug attaches to the lattice-like capsid proteins that shield the virus’s genetic material—a mechanism that could inspire other antivirals. Lenacapavir could help end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but that will hinge on access for those who need it most.

Science’s 2024 Breakthrough of the Year is lenacapavir, an injectable drug that demonstrated remarkable success at preventing HIV infection with one shot every 6 months.

Learn more about this year's #BOTY and other big advances in science: scim.ag/3BrCtUn

Excellent science teaching resource, building on the fascinating story of the discovery of #Trypanosoma cruzi and its vector by Carlos #Chagas.

This is a brilliant teaching resource, thank you for sharing, and for raising the profile of #Chagas disease!

EastBio: Keeping up with the Joneses: how do trypanosome parasites adapt to coinfection with other trypanosomes? at University of Edinburgh on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - EastBio: Keeping up with the Joneses: how do trypanosome parasites adapt to coinfection with other trypanosomes? at University of Edinburgh, listed on FindAPhD.com

🚨 Multiple #parasite -based PhD opportunities from the EastBio Doctoral Training Programme at Edinburgh Uni! 🚨

- Deadline for all are the 17th Jan '25

1. Trypanosoma co-infections: tinyurl.com/vyv855kw
2. Mitochondrial genome complexity in #trypanosoma: tinyurl.com/c6hk652f

#Parasitology #ntds

🚨 Save the Date - BSP Specialist #Kinetoplastid meeting in Czechia! 🚨

- 𝟭-𝟰𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱
- #Trypanosoma & #Leishmania biology and epidemiology
- More details to come at tinyurl.com/mpr88zed
- Followed by a mini-symposium to celebrate Prof Alan Fairlamb's achievements in the field!

#parasitology

The University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit is now on Bluesky, find us @ddu-dundee.bsky.social! We are over 100 scientists focused on developing new treatments for tropical infectious diseases, new approaches for #drugdiscovery and proof of concept for novel targets. 🧪
drugdiscovery.dundee.ac.uk