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| Institute of Microbiology and TB Alliance Announce Partnership to Develop New Tuberculosis Drugs from Natural Sources |
| Author: Updatetime:2009-04-03 |
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The Institute of Microbiology and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance), a not-for-profit,
product development partnership accelerating the discovery and development of new TB drugs, today
announced a partnership to discover and develop promising, novel anti-tuberculosis agents from natural
sources, including microbial metabolites and traditional Chinese medicines.
A pilot screen conducted by IMCAS identified 24 natural product extracts as having potential anti-tubercular
activity. IMCAS and the TB Alliance will collaborate to further test these extracts, purify and identify the active
components, and develop those that prove most promising. Additionally, IMCAS and the TB Alliance will work
together to investigate the traditional Chinese herbal medicines and purified compounds for biological activity
against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis organism. Scientists in China have made significant contributions in
developing new drugs from natural sources, as exemplified by the identification of Artemisinin, one of the most
effective anti-malarial drugs, first isolated from a traditional Chinese medicinal plant. The deficiency in natural
product screening directly against M. tuberculosis combined with China’s strong track record of successfully
developing new drugs from traditional Chinese medicines, suggests such screenings are likely to yield novel
active compounds.
Previously, a group of scientists including Professors Lixin Zhang, Deborah Hung and Eric Rubin from IMCAS,
Broad Institute and Harvard University, respectively, worked together to investigate underlying mechanisms of
mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb), the bacterium that causes TB, with the intent to develop new TB drugs
from natural sources to treat both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB. Modern technologies including
high-throughput chemical screening, total genome sequencing, and construction of systematic,
comprehensive arrayed bacterial libraries were utilized in this process.
"This partnership reflects China’s increasing commitment to address the deadly TB epidemic which has had
such a devastating effect on so much of the world for so many years,” said Mel Spigelman, President and
CEO, TB Alliance.” Bringing the best science in China together with the expertise of the TB Alliance is an
example of the pooling of global resources necessary to save the millions of lives needlessly lost to TB every
year.”
“The fight against tuberculosis is a global endeavor. This partnership represents joint efforts by IMCAS and
the TB Alliance in the development of new TB drugs from natural resources,” said Prof. Li Huang, Executive
Deputy Director-General of the IMCAS. “Natural products have long been an important source of drugs for human medicine. The rich functionality and stereochemistry of natural products is without doubt one of their great
strengths, providing both potency and selectivity. Taking advantage of its expertise in the exploitation of
microbial resources, IMCAS has recently set up the Drug Discovery Center for Tuberculosis. The aim of the
Center, led by Prof. Lixin Zhang, is to develop and deliver novel TB drugs that work quickly and can help
prevent the problems of today’s drugs, relating to compliance, drug resistance and TB-HIV co-infection.”
The TB Alliance is leading the development of the most comprehensive portfolio of TB drugs in history, and is
accelerating discovery, preclinical and clinical research of known and novel classes of antibiotics to shorten
and simplify the treatment of tuberculosis, including MDR and XDR-TB. The TB Alliance is committed to
making all drugs developed by its research partnerships affordable and available to all who need them. |
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