Institute of Neuroimmunology
Topic
Development nanodrug system against neurotropic flavivirus
PhD. program
Molecular biology
Year of admission
2024
Name of the supervisor
prof. MVDr. Mangesh Ramesh Bhide, PhD.
Contact:
Receiving school
Faculty of Natural Sciences Comenius University in Bratislava
Annotation
Flaviviruses, such as Dengue virus (DENV), Zika virus (ZIKV), west Nile virus (WNV) and Yellow fever virus (YFV) are vector-borne pathogens with the capacity to cause devastating human diseases. The outbreak of Zika in 2016 caused a large-scale epidemic in the Americas. Dengue virus infects about 400 million people each year, and causes 96 million clinical cases. In the case of WNV the mortality rate is 13%, however, WNV infection often culminate in neuroglial sequalae affecting up to 50% of patients. Evidences suggest that a single mutation in the genome of flavivirus can increase transmission and pathogenesis, further reinforcing the need to be prepared for flavivirus outbreaks. These viruses are known for their broad cellular tropism including the central nervous system (CNS). Public health efforts to mitigate flavivirus transmission rely heavily on vector control strategies, as only a limited number of flavivirus vaccines have been developed so far while no antivirals for flaviviruses are available. Thus, the objective of the PhD work is development of nanodrug to deal one of the infections caused by DENV, ZIKV, WNV or YFV (doctoral fellow will select virus of interest). The proposed nanodrug will be composed of polyamidoamine dendrimers loaded with antiviral dipeptides with boronic acid or palmitic acid moiety and surface decorated with virus binding recombinant paratope (CDR3) and angiopep-2, (CNS homing peptide) as a proof of concept for targeting neurotropic flaviviruses. Doctoral fellow is expected to generate, clinical useful pilot results for the best performing candidates for future translation into the drug.