What are the health needs and challenges?

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a group of tropical infections caused by virus, bacteria or parasites that are especially endemic in low-income populations in developing countries. It is estimated that more than 1 billion people are affected by NTDs.

Globally, there are an estimated 12 million patients affected by leishmaniasis, 8 million affected by Chagas disease and 300,000 patients living with human African trypanosomiasis for which there are no effective treatments.

Partnership activities and how they address needs and challenges

The iNTRODB was created as a part of the collaborative research between six institutes in Japan and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a non-profit drug research and development organization. It is the world’s first integrated database for NTDs Drug-discovery research.

This drug-discovery research targets four NTDs: leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), which are in most need for effective new medicines among NTDs, and dengue fever which has high unmet medical needs.

The iNTRODB includes information on all protein-coding genes in genomes of three trypanosome species which cause Leishmaniasis, Chagas’ disease and African trypanosomiasis. It helps researchers to identify and choose promising drug target proteins by providing various information including protein structure, potential inhibitors, and experimental assay results. Every researcher can freely use this database and therefore the iNTRODB can accelerate drug discovery research for NTDs across the world.

The database has been built on the basis of the supercomputers and expertise in information technology at Tokyo Tech, the genetic and biological data and knowledge about protozoa at the University of Tokyo, and the knowledge and expertise on drug discovery and research at Astellas.