Country of nationality:

Cameroon

Research area:

Malaria

Host Organisation & country:

Institute of Medical Research and Medicinal Plants Studies (IMPM), Cameroon

Summary

With the increasing malaria parasite resistance to drugs in Africa, the development of antimalarials with new modes of actions is more critical than ever. Dr Tarkang’s research will employ a multidisciplinary approach aimed at the discovery of new anti-infective agents for the identification and validation of new drug targets for malaria therapy.

Grantee Description

Dr Protus Arrey Tarkang is a Senior Research Fellow at IMPM, Cameroon. He obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy and Complementary Medicine from the University of Nairobi, Kenya in 2014 and his doctoral work focused on the evaluation of the antimalarial and safety profile of a polyherbal product (Nefang). This was proceeded by a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship in infectious diseases, during which he evaluated the in vitro antiplasmodial activities and characterized the interactions between constituent plant extracts of some polyherbals.

Dr Tarkang’s enduring focus is to continuously discover novel natural products and their derived biomolecules and to expand fundamental knowledge about their biological properties, in view of improving their medicinal use. A core research interest is in malaria phytotherapy and centred on the development and application of innovative technologies and screening methods, leading to the discovery of new therapeutic leads.

Project: Combining metabolomics profiling of polyherbals and Plasmodium falciparum asexual blood stage-specificity to improve mechanistic knowledge on malaria therapeutic lead discovery.

This multidisciplinary project aims at the discovery of new anti-infective agents that target human malaria parasites, from selected polyherbals and their use for the identification and validation of novel drug targets for Plasmodium falciparum malaria therapy, by combining herbal metabolomics profiling and P. falciparum asexual blood stage-specificity. Herbal formulations have long attracted interests owing to the potential for synergistic therapeutic effects of components within the mixture, but present challenges to drug discovery due to technical barriers in chemical screening. High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS)-based metabolomics presents a dependable platform for the complete elucidation of the chemical diversity of active plants. Whereas High-throughput screens are able to identify potent chemical scaffolds, the lack of knowledge on their target often hampers their further development. The study design that he is developing will be a combined approach that provides more resolution into the various anti-infective agents, their interactions and their different modes of action, by identifying the specific moment of asexual blood stage development against which these compounds are most active in comparison with antimalarial drugs, in the context of combination therapies.