It sounds frightening: a brain-eating amoeba living in stagnant water and soil can cause a rare brain infection. And it’s almost always fatal.
But two Northeastern University researchers have this amoeba in their sights, receiving a National Institutes of Health grant to develop a treatment for amoebic encephalitis.
“We’re really looking to try and develop a new drug to treat this disease, one that’s been developed specifically for this infection, where there currently isn’t any,” says Lori Ferrins, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Northeastern.
Ferrins is collaborating on the grant with Mary Jo Ondrechen, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Northeastern.
“Our goal is to kill the amoeba,” Ferrins says.
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Photo credit: CDC Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria
