Neglected Tropical Diseases

Approximately 1 billion people – one sixth of the world’s population – suffer from one or more neglected tropical diseases. The World Health Organization has defined Neglected Tropical Diseases as diseases that affect a majority of the developing world but have been underfunded in terms of research and product development dollars. They include (among others): Buruli ulcer, Chagas disease, Cholera, Dengue, Dracunculensis, Leishmaniasis, Onchocerciasis, Schistosomiasis, and Trachoma. Genomes for many of these pathogens are becoming available due to research efforts worldwide, and so the iCubed is collaborating with researchers to identify new epitopes and design vaccines using the CCHI funded ‘iVAX’ toolkit. The iCubed runs a training session per year – following these training sessions, NTD researchers can gain access to a dedicated website containing their genomes of choice for their own epitope-mapping use.

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