Unconventional Lab Pioneers New Drug Discovery
▼ Summary
– Kelly Chibale founded the H3D Centre at the University of Cape Town to discover new drugs in Africa, focusing on diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.
– The center is a rare, comprehensive African facility that sets its own research agenda to address locally prevalent diseases.
– H3D’s drug discovery process involves screening tens of thousands of molecules with robots and refining promising candidates.
– The center aims to retain scientific talent in Africa and tailors drug dosing to the continent’s genetically diverse populations.
– H3D has achieved milestones like advancing a novel malaria drug to human clinical trials through an Africa-led effort.
The quest for new medicines is often described as a marathon, requiring immense patience and resilience. For Professor Kelly Chibale, the director of the Holistic Drug Discovery and Development (H3D) Centre at the University of Cape Town, the process is more akin to a fairy tale. “You have to kiss many frogs before you meet the prince,” he observes. In this context, the prince is a novel compound capable of treating devastating illnesses like malaria and tuberculosis, diseases that disproportionately affect his home continent.
Chibale founded H3D to establish a world-class drug discovery pipeline within Africa. Historically, the agenda for which diseases are researched and which populations benefit has been set in North America, Europe, and Asia. H3D represents a paradigm shift. It is a rare, fully integrated facility on the African continent equipped to tackle some of humanity’s most persistent health challenges. For Chibale, a Zambian chemist, this mission is the natural culmination of a lifelong passion. He recalls falling in love with organic chemistry as a student, captivated by the artistry of manipulating molecular structures. “It’s a science, but it’s also an art,” he says, describing molecules as beautiful and without ugliness.
After studying and working in the U. K. and U. S., Chibale witnessed the immense pharmaceutical research infrastructure in the Global North. He also recognized its limitations in addressing Africa’s specific disease burden. When a faculty position opened in Cape Town in 1996, he felt a profound calling to return. “It wasn’t from my head, it was from my spirit,” he remembers. His goal was to prove that world-class research could originate from Africa and to stem the continent’s brain drain by creating opportunities for scientists at home.
The work at H3D is intensely focused on molecules. In laboratories filled with robotic compound dispensers, researchers screen tens of thousands of molecules to find those that can disable a pathogen or block a crucial enzyme. The team then meticulously refines the most promising candidates. This approach has already yielded significant milestones. Over a decade ago, an H3D-led international effort discovered a novel malaria drug candidate that advanced to human clinical trials, a first for any Africa-led project. While safety concerns in animal studies ultimately halted that compound’s development, the achievement proved what was possible.
A critical component of the center’s work involves pharmacokinetics, determining how a drug is absorbed, metabolized, and excreted by the body. Scientist Mathew Njoroge notes that Africa’s status as the most genetically diverse continent makes this especially vital. Dosing optimized for one population may be ineffective or unsafe for another. However, conducting this research presents unique challenges. In many African cultures, organ donation is taboo, limiting access to liver samples needed for metabolic studies. The team therefore supplements a small supply of samples with sophisticated computer modeling to simulate drug metabolism across diverse African populations.
The impact of H3D resonates globally. Philip Rosenthal, a malaria researcher at UCSF, calls the center “extraordinary” and likely the world’s leading comprehensive drug discovery hub for diseases of the developing world. Mohammad Shafiul Alam, a parasitologist in Bangladesh, finds H3D’s model encouraging and believes it should be replicated across the Global South. He emphasizes that with Africa bearing the highest burden of malaria cases and deaths, locally driven research is not just important but critical, particularly in an era of constrained global funding.
For Chibale, the mission is deeply personal. As a child in Zambia, he survived a severe malaria infection. Only later did he reflect on the chain of human effort that saved him: the researchers who developed the medicine and the unknown volunteers who participated in clinical trials. That childhood experience now fuels his resolve. He and his team are committed to the holistic cycle of discovery, learning from the lab and from patients to develop the next generation of lifesaving treatments for Africa, by Africa.
(Source: NPR)
