• Question: If you were to develop new drugs for parasites, what would you test them on first?

    Asked by terry to Hannah on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Hannah Bolt

      Hannah Bolt answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Hi terry,

      Thanks for your great question 🙂 I do indeed develop new drugs against parasites! I test my new molecules against is the parasites that cause the disease leishmanaisis.

      First I test my drug against the parasites outside of a cell, so I grow my parasites in medium (which contains all the nutrients they need to grow). Then I add drugs to them to see if the drugs kill the parasites.

      If my compounds work well against the parasites, I then infect some mammalian cells with the parasites (I infect cells called macrophages which come from a mouse). I then add my drugs to the macrophages to see if the drugs can get through the mouse cell, without killing it, and whether the drugs then have activity against the parasites.

      I hope that all makes sense? Feel free to comment if you want to know more 🙂

      Hannah

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