Award for drug research on river blindness and elephantiasis
Together with the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London and industrial partners from Astra Zeneca and Eisai Ltd, Prof. Dr Achim Hoerauf (right) and Prof. Dr Marc Hübner (left) have been awarded the Horizon Prize 2024 by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
DZIF professors Marc Hübner and Achim Hörauf are part of the international anti-Wolbachia team that has been honoured with the Horizon Prize 2024 by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The prize was awarded for the discovery of potentially fast-acting, highly specific drug candidates against Wolbachia bacteria for the oral treatment of human filariasis.
Wolbachia are gram-negative bacteria that live as obligatory—i.e. vital for their hosts—symbionts in filariae (threadworms) and other animals. Filariae cause worm diseases—known as filariasis—in humans.
Scientists from the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London, the University Hospital Bonn and the University of Bonn as well as industrial partners from Astra Zeneca and Eisai Ltd are working together in the anti-Wolbachia team. On the part of the DZIF, Prof. Dr Achim Hörauf and Prof. Dr Marc Hübner are being honoured for their contribution to the fight against rare tropical diseases.
Further information can be found in the press release of the University Hospital Bonn (in German only).
