Brazilian Excellence
Agência Fapesp - 07/28/2008
The World Health Organization (WHO) has just created a new International Reference Center in Chemical Medicine for the Chagas Disease in Brazil, formed by groups of excellence connected to the University of São Paulo (USP) in São Carlos (SP) and to the Campinas State University (Unicamp). The new center will work directly in the network of new-drugs-discovery laboratories of the WHO's Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). After a competitive international selection, the organization chose the Brazilian group to form the center aimed specifically at the research on Chagas Disease. The group is formed by researchers from the Institute of Physics of São Carlos (IFSC) of the USP - connected to the Center for Molecular Structural Biotechnology (CBME), one of the Centers for Research, Innovation and Diffusion (Cepid) of FAPESP - and to the Laboratory of Synthetic Organic Chemistry of Unicamp. According to Adriano Andricopulo, coordinator of the new project and of the Computational Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory (LQMC), the WHO released the rules to create the centers after making long tests and finding some molecules of interest for a series of tropical diseases. According to him the Brazilian center will have a specific mission in the network: discover candidates for new drugs against Chagas Disease using two of these molecules selected by the WHO and kept under full confidentiality as a reference. According to Andricopulo, the composites will be optimized through the application of advanced techniques of medicinal chemistry, and the most promising ones shall undergo a clinical phase of development, after agreements are entered into with governmental agencies or pharmaceutical companies. "The resources invested in this project will come entirely from the WHO. They have already allowed the hiring of two doctors with excellent experience to work on exclusive dedication basis", said Andricopulo. According to him, the contract is good for one year, renewable, for an indefinite period, from the evaluation of the results. According to Andricopulo, the project covers all the essential stages of basic research required for the discovery of new candidates to drugs. According to the researcher, the WHO initiative is part of a strategy to fight the tropical diseases that affect millions of people all over the world.