Antiprotozoal Natural Products

Groupe

Scientific leader

Catherine VONTHRON-SENECHEAU, Associate professor

Objectives

Our research links natural products chemistry, parasitology and botany and aims to:

  •   Accelerate the discovery of new antiprotozoal natural products
  •   Contribute to the untangling of their mechanism of action

Three rational approaches are being developed in the team to understand these problems:

  •   A phylogenetic approach
  •   A chemotaxonomic approach
  •   An ethnopharmacological approach

Scientific issues

Expected outcome

  • New drugs against malaria and leishmaniasis

  • New original molecular targets to rationally develop new antiparasitic drugs

Skills

  • Pharmacognosy

  • Antiprotozoal natural products

  • Ethnopharmacology, chemotaxonomy

  • Isolation and structural identification of plant natural products

  • Herbal Medicine

Keywords

natural products, plants, algae, pharmacognosy, phytochemistry, chemotaxonomy, ethnopharmacology, phylogeny, screening, neglected diseases, malaria, prototozoal diseases, leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis, parasites, Plasmodium falciparum, Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense, Trypanosoma cruzi, Leishmania donovani, pharmacomodulation, structural elucidation

Collaborations

  • Université de Bâle (M. KAISER)
  • Université de Yaoundé, ENS (B. LENTA)
  • Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, CERMN (V. COLLOT) + UMR BOREA 7208 (A-M. RUSIG)
  • Université de Toulouse, UMR IRD-UPS 152 (E. DEHARO, M. SAUVAIN), UPR CNRS 8241 (F. BENOIT-VICAL)
  • UMR EcoFoG (E. HOUEL)
  • École Supérieure de Biotechnologie de Strasbourg (P. FECHTER)
  • Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Homme – Alsace, Strasbourg (V. PITCHON)
  • Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes de Strasbourg, UPR CNRS 2357 (T. BACH, A. HEMMERLIN)
  • Medicines for Malaria Venture
  • Institut Pasteur du Cambodge (B. WITKOWSKI)
  • Université catholique de Louvain (J. QUETIN-LECLERCQ)
  • Université Paris Cité (S. BOUTEFNOUCHET, R. GROUGNET)