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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

CP8.1: Drugs and Drug Resistance 1 - 5 min talks
Location: Lecture Theatre 1
Session Chair: Christopher Hart, Griffith University
Session Chair: Hannah Smith, Griffith University

Presentation 1

Defining the target of potent and selective drug-leads in Giardia duodenalis

Keely Fayd'Herbe^1,2, Christopher Hart¹, Andrew Riches³, Ghizal Siddiqui⁴, Jack Ryan³, Tina Skinner-Adams^1,2

1: Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, Queensland 4111, Australia; 2: School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, Queensland 4111, Australia; 3: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Biomedical Manufacturing, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia; 4: Monash Proteomics & Metabolomics Platform, Monash University, VIC, Australia

Giardia duodenalis is a parasitic protist and the causative agent of giardiasis, a diarrhoeal disease that infects approximately one billion people annually and results in over 300 million cases of acute or chronic illness. Clinical presentations range from self-limiting disease to persistent and debilitating symptoms. Current treatment relies on a limited number of drugs from few chemical classes, many of which suffer from significant drawbacks, including prolonged treatment regimens, variable efficacy, severe side effects, and reduced effectiveness due to emerging drug resistance. To address these limitations, our team has developed a series of novel antiparasitic compounds, including lead candidates with substantially improved efficacy and selectivity compared with existing therapies.

While the mode of action of these compounds remains unclear, untargeted proteomic and drug‑combination studies suggest that they may act on the parasite cytoskeleton or phosphorylation‑based signalling machinery via previously unexplored mechanisms. These findings, along with ongoing efforts to define the mode of action of this compound series, will be discussed.