SLU's Center For World Health And Medicine Receives Grant To Treat Pediatric Diarrhea
Saint Louis University’s Center for World Health and Medicine announced that it has received a grant for $3.13 million in order to develop therapies to treat pediatric diarrhea. The funds are part of a three year sub grant—a $15.6 million grant was awarded to PATH by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and SLU was awarded about one fifth of those funds. Pediatric diarrhea is a potentially dangerous condition and kills an estimated 600,000 young children and infants around the globe every year. The grant from the Gates Foundation was intended to support PATH research teams that are studying various anti-secretory drug targets in the gastrointestinal tract. The goal is to develop drug candidates to complement oral rehydration therapy.
SLU has stated that it will be studying multiple sets of drug compounds that are in differing stages of development. The goal is to identify at least two potential drugs that can be tested in animal trials and eventually in human clinical trials. SLU’s Center for World Health and Medicine will have 8 scientists dedicated to the project, including biologists, chemists, and pharmacologists.
Marvin Meyers, PhD and director of medicinal chemistry for the Center for World Health and Medicine, commented on the goals of the project. “We're trying to repurpose drugs for childhood diarrhea that pharmaceutical companies had developed as therapy for hypertension that also target a similar pathway in the intestine. Researchers conducting clinical trials found these drugs are safe but didn't work to lower the blood pressure of study participants,” he said. Meyers added that his team didn’t want to lower blood pressure, and they were more focused on the loss of fluids from acute secretory diarrhea, which can quickly lead to a dangerous loss of water from the body.