Member Article

North East company seeks rainforest cures

A North East university spin-out company responsible for the development of the world’s fastest drug profiling system has joined forces with a Brazilian company to seek new medicines from the South American rainforests.

Newcastle University company e-Therapeutics has formed a partnership with Brazilian company Grupo TCI to establish a joint research facility close to the Amazonian and Atlantic rainforests. Here, scientists will test substances from millions of plants, seeking cures for a range of diseases which threaten to reach pandemic levels. These include drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis and virus infections like avian flu. New drugs are also being sought for tropical diseases which occur in Brazil, such as hepatitis C, Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis.

In a separate deal, e-Therapeutics is joining forces with CURA, a pharmaceutical consortium backed by the Brazilian Government, which is establishing a cluster of drug discovery, development and marketing industries in North East Brazil. This will give e-Therapeutics a base from which to access Brazilian pharmaceutical companies.

e-Therapeutics was spun out of Newcastle University in 2003 by Professor Malcolm Young, who developed new ‘systems biology’ techniques which can accurately predict the biological effect of any substance on any human tissue and on pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses. He attracted more than £10m research funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and other organisations to turn his ideas into practice.

Professor Young, who is now Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Newcastle University, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to investigate Brazil’s colossal biodiversity with our cutting edge technology. There is enormous potential for drug discovery in the rain forests, where there are millions of plant species, many of which produce bioactive chemicals.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .