U of T Researcher Discovers Promising New Treatment for Parasitic Worm Infections

Research led by PRiME faculty member Professor Andrew Fraser at the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research has achieved a significant milestone in identifying a new class of compounds with promise for combatting parasitic worm infections that affect over a billion individuals worldwide. The work, with PhD student Taylor Davie and collaborators from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, was published in Nature Communications.

Parasitic worms such as hookworm and whipworm pose a major global health threat, with limited treatment options and increasing drug resistance. Fraser's team focused on a metabolic pathway that enables parasites to survive in the low-oxygen environment of the host gut — a pathway unique to the parasites, so drugs that block it should kill the parasites without harming the infected human.

Teaming up with RIKEN, they screened 480 structural families of natural products in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and found a new family of compounds that block a key mitochondrial enzyme essential for the parasites' survival. Initial tests with the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute demonstrated clear effects in mice.

Fraser notes that "over a billion people are infected with these parasitic worms — it is a huge global health problem," and emphasizes the value of discovery science. The collaboration exemplifies the power of interdisciplinary research and international partnerships in driving impactful discoveries.