Dr. Fabrice Fekam Boyom completed a Doctorat 3ème Cycle (DSc) in 1992 and a Doctorat d’Etat (ScD) in 2004 in Biochemistry from the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon. He also completed postdoctoral studies in chemistry and pharmacology of biomolecules (Université de Montpellier 2, France 1993; 2000-2002) and in antimalarial drug discovery (Senior Fulbright Scholarship- University of California, San Francisco, USA. 2002-2003) where he also had much training in important aspects of drug discovery against infectious diseases including, but not limited to, bio-guided phytochemistry, cells/parasites culture, in vitro/in vivo drug screening, and animal welfare in biomedical research. He is currently Full Professor (since 2015) and Head of the laboratory for Phytobiochemistry and Medicinal Plants Studies with main focus on Search for Antimicrobial and Biocontrol Agents (AmBcAU). Available facilities and expertise at AmBcAU enable routine performance of mammalian cells and parasites culture and middle-high throughput in vitro screening, in vivo assays, toxicological assays. AmBcAU has repurposed with success the Open Access MMV Malaria/Pathogen/Stasis Boxes to discover potent inhibitors of Toxoplasma gondii, Entamoeba histolytica, Leishmania spp., and Mycobacterium ulcerans. Prof. Boyom has supervised over 20 PhD theses and 50 Masters Dissertations in the field of Biochemistry of natural substances and drug discovery research, and has published more than 200 research papers and presentations in reputed journals and international conferences. He also endeavors as editorial board member and reviewer for many high standards peer-reviewed journals. He has signed MoUs with many centers of excellence worldwide (Centre Pasteur du Cameroun, 2014, the International Centre For Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, India, 2017, the University of South Florida, USA, 2017) and Pharmaceutical Companies (Johnson&Johnson, 2018; EISAI, 2018) as frameworks for collaboration on drug discovery against malaria, leishmaniasis, HAT, buruli ulcer and other NTDs, and students training.

AAS-GC Research Project: Discovery of new drug candidates against malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis through screening of chemical libraries.

Recent estimates indicate that malaria, leishmaniasis and Human African trypanosomiasis continue to claim millions of lives. The throbbing burden of these diseases is mainly associated with drug resistance and other side effects. Therefore, to flush new candidates into the drug development pipeline, this project builds on intra-African and international (Pharmaceutical companies, Academic institutions) collaborations to identify medicinal chemistry starting points from the screening of target-based chemical libraries against the causative agents of malaria, leishmaniasis and HAT. Overall, we anticipate that this project will deliver potent candidates for further drug discovery against malaria, leishmaniasis and HAT.