WISDOM-II: second Wide In Silico Docking On Malaria
The impact of the first WISDOM data challenge has significantly raised the interest of the research community so that several laboratories all around the world expressed interest to propose targets for a second large scale deployment against malaria. Contacts established with research groups from Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Thailand and France led to a list of four targets.
Target overview:
DHFR from P. falciparum - University of Modena: known target of the pyrimethamine and cycloguanil drugs. Pyrimethamine and cycloguanil are now inefficient against drug-resistance parasites due to DHFR mutations.
DHFR from P. vivax - University of Los Andes: Plasmodium vivax is responsible for malaria in South America.
Prof Sirawaraporn (Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand) will perform biological assays on the best hits coming out of WISDOM data challenges on P. falciparum and P. vivax DHFR targets.
Tubulin from P. falciparum - CEA and Accamba project: new target involved in cell replication in Plasmodium, but also in human (it is a potential target for cancer treatment).
GST from P. falciparum - University of Pretoria: new target involved in parasite detoxification.
