A university has been awarded £7.9 million for a joint project with pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to boost efforts to find new drug treatments for some of the world's most devastating diseases.
The funding from the Wellcome Trust will enable the University of Dundee and GSK researchers to continue their work to develop treatments for parasitic diseases including visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis and Chagas' disease over the next five years.
These neglected diseases cause substantial suffering and an estimated 60,000 deaths annually worldwide, the university said.
It follows the announcement of £13.6 million from Wellcome in December 2016 to establish the Wellcome centre for anti-infectives research at the university to tackle some of the world's most devastating diseases.
Professor Paul Wyatt, director of the Wellcome centre for anti-infectives research, said: "The development of effective and safe drugs for leishmaniasis and Chagas' disease will save many lives and improve the quality of life and economies within the developing world.
"The continuing unmet medical need is caused by the current therapies being not fit for purpose, recent clinical trials failures, sparse drug discovery pipelines across the world and there is general agreement that treatment with a combination of drugs is required for these diseases.
"In partnership with GSK, we have established the broad range of expertise required to discover these much-needed drugs.
"The team combines world renowned parasitology, extensive experience developing drug molecules that can kill the parasites and the substantial expertise and infrastructure required to develop drug candidates suitable for clinical trials.
"This funding from Wellcome is a vital boost to us achieving our five-year goal of producing three new drug candidates suitable for clinical trials in leishmaniasis and Chagas' disease.
"We are already making very strong progress in finding possible drugs to treat visceral leishmaniasis, with two candidates funded under a previous Wellcome award currently in the pre-clinical stage of testing which we hope will prove successful."
Leishmaniasis is caused by the protozoan Leishmania parasites which are transmitted by the bite of infected female phlebotomine sandflies and affects some of the poorest people on earth.
Chagas' disease is found mainly in endemic areas of 21 Latin American countries, where it is mostly transmitted to humans by contact with faeces or urine of triatomine bugs, often known as "kissing bugs".
Dr Jose Fiandor, director of GSK's kinetoplastids discovery performance unit, said: "The collaboration with the University of Dundee and this funding from Wellcome are vital boosts towards the achievement of our five-year goal of producing new preclinical candidates for leishmaniasis and/or Chagas' disease."
Wellcome is an independent global charitable foundation which supports scientists and researchers.
Steve Caddick, Wellcome's director of innovation, said: "Wellcome is committed to working with partners to develop new treatments and we are delighted to announce support for the dedicated team of drug discovery experts at Dundee."
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