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0:00
This is James H. McKerrow from the
UCSF Center for Drug Discovery.
I'm giving a talk on the
challenge of developing
drugs for neglected
parasitic diseases.
0:14
We're going to be talking
about parasitic diseases today,
so what is a parasite?
0:20
Parasite comes from the
Greek word, parasitos.
which is the name of a class
of priests who had meals
at public expense-- this, according
to Clitodemus, an ancient writer.
And certainly, by this
definition, probably all of you
have met a parasite in your life.
0:39
But the modern
definition of parasite
refers to eukaryotic
organisms that can range
from very simple single-cell
protozoa, such as malaria
and the trypanosomes, to very
complex multicellular worms,
including roundwarms,
the nematodes, flatworms,
the platyhelminths, and
cestodes, the tapeworms.
1:02
So we've defined parasite.
Let's define what we mean
by a neglected disease.
1:08
Neglected tropical diseases
are diseases in which there are
no effective drugs, no safe
drugs, or there's drug resistance.
This is despite the fact that these
are diseases that affect hundreds
of millions of people
worldwide, making
them major global health problems.
In addition, for many
of these diseases,
there is currently no
adequate diagnostic test.
And for virtually all of them,
there is no effective vaccine.
So why is it that if diseases,
such as shown in this slide,
affect so many million people,
we don't have effective drugs?
