A Zambian scientist is on a quest to stop the brain drain from Africa, so he sets up a state-of-the-art drug discovery lab in South Africa.
Steve Inskip, Host:
The discovery of new drugs often takes place in rich countries, which means that drugs are often tailored to the populations of those countries and not so much to the populations of what is commonly known as the Global South. In South Africa, reporter Ari Daniel meets researchers who take a different approach.
ARIE DANIEL, BYLINE: Kelly Chibale grabs a chemistry book from a shelf in his office…
(soundbite of pages riffling)
Daniel: …and riffles through the parade of molecules, each one like an old friend.
Kelly Chibale: Calichemycin, Taxol, Brevetoxin-B, co. They are all here.
Daniel: Chibale’s first taste of organic chemistry was in college in his home country of Zambia. Once he began visualizing molecules and how to transform one into another, he suddenly knew he had found his passion.
Chbale: It’s a science, but it’s also an art. And that’s what really fascinates me about organic chemistry, and that’s – I think I fell in love. You know, when you fall in love, you don’t really – can’t explain.
Daniel: Later, in labs in the UK and the US, as a graduate student and researcher, Chibale was struck by the connection between chemistry and complex medicine.
Chbale: What is medicine? It is a molecule, and a molecule has a chemical structure.
Daniel: A structure that can be built in a laboratory with effort.
Chhbale: So when you see these Mount Everests of molecules that you’ve made, it’s amazing. I mean, these things are just beautiful.
Daniel: While abroad, Chibale saw up close the powerful pipeline of drug discovery in the West.
Chhbale: I saw that the pharmaceutical industry employed thousands and thousands of scientists working in research and development.
Daniel: And addressing the health challenges associated with that population. Chibale knew that was not the case in Africa – a continent where many countries struggle with their own ills, along with limited funding, infrastructure and technological know-how. As Chibale finished his work in California, he considered jobs with Western pharma companies. But then he saw a posting at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and something stirred inside him.
Chhbale: I felt this call. It didn’t come from my head. It is from my soul. I thought that – to show that it is possible to do world-class research from Africa.
Daniel: He took the position and later founded the Holistic Drug Discovery and Development Center in Cape Town, where he now serves as director. They say it is essentially the only place in all of Africa that has everything needed to find new drugs.
(soundbite of key unlocking door)
Chbale: Right.
Daniel: Yes.
Chhbale: Give you a lab coat…
Daniel: Yes. Of course.
CHBALE: …to protect you.
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Daniel: Chibale takes me inside his lab. We pass benches and flasks, countless bottles of reagents …
Chbale: It is a rotary evaporator.
Daniel: And all kinds of machine…
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Daniel: …he and his team use it in the discovery of new drugs to combat malaria, tuberculosis and antimicrobial resistance.
Chbale: Diseases that are very prevalent in my continent.
Daniel: Here’s the method. Researchers take enormous numbers of molecules — sometimes tens of thousands — and, using robots that precisely dispense those compounds, see if any can kill the pathogen in question or inactivate one of its key enzymes.
Chhbale: We focus on molecules that selectively kill the parasite and do not harm normal mammalian cells.
Daniel: And then his team tweaks the most promising molecules to see if they can make them even more powerful until they have an ace in hand. It was the approach they followed that led to the emergence of a promising new type of malaria drug a decade ago.
Chhbale: An African-led international effort took a project out of the laboratory and discovered a drug that could enter human clinical trials for any disease.
Daniel: Safety concerns arose in the rat studies, which ultimately stopped further testing. And this, says Chibale, is the nature of drug discovery.
Chhbale: That doesn’t mean there are no surprises or miracles. They happen, you know? But you have to kiss many frogs before you meet the prince.
Daniel: Chibale is looking for this prince in Africa to improve the health of Africans and stop the bleeding of local talent abroad.
Chhbale: If we can attract talent to develop it, nurture it, we can keep talent here.
Daniel: The center currently employs over 75 people. Matthew Njoroge is one of the scientists here.
Matthew Njoroge: It gives us all a lot of optimism about what the future of drug discovery in Africa might look like.
Daniel: Njoroge is originally from Kenya.
NJOROGE: I collect data, finding out how drugs are absorbed and excreted.
Daniel: This is important information because if a drug is developed and tested in one population, it may not work or be dangerous in another population. This is especially true in Africa, the most genetically diverse continent. Mwila Mulubwa is also a scientist at the center who grew up in Zambia.
MWILA MULUBWA: We don’t treat Africans as a homogenous population like Caucasians. There are several different subpopulations that may metabolize the drug differently.
Daniel: The correct dosage of the drug is determined by the patient population using the liver.
Bottom Line: The liver is actually the organ that breaks down most drugs.
Daniel: In a country like the US, organ donation provides a lot of levers to test drugs before they go into human trials. But such practice is largely banned across Africa, says Matthew Njoroge.
NJOROGE: There is that culture around the integrity of the body, so we don’t feel comfortable donating organs.
Daniel: So the team in Cape Town is working with a small number of liver samples already collected while running computer models to simulate the metabolism of an African population and predict an optimized dose. Kelly Chibale says this is part of the elaborate process required to develop the drug and bring it to the people who need it.
Chhbale: It’s not just going from the lab to the patient, but vice versa – from the patient back to the lab.
Daniel: As a child, Chibale was one of the patients battling a particularly serious malaria infection. He remembers being wheeled into a hospital in Zambia, hearing that other children were dying early of the same disease. Doctors gave Chibale the medicine he needed to survive.
Chbale: And I took it for granted. Only much later in life I realized two things. Number 1 – Someone somewhere in the world has invested in discovering and developing that drug. The second thing was that someone somewhere, another person I didn’t know, volunteered to participate in a clinical trial for my benefit.
Daniel: Chibale has made a full recovery, and now he’s committed to finding a new drug to cure someone – his neighbor.
For NPR News, I’m Ari Daniel, Cape Town, South Africa.
INSKEEP: Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center.
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