Manu De Rycker
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mdr-ddu.bsky.social
Manu De Rycker
@mdr-ddu.bsky.social
Head of Biology in the Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee. Portfolio leader for kinetoplastid and antifungal drug discovery.
Passionate about developing new treatments for Neglected Tropical Diseases.
#Chagas disease remains very neglected, and not only in the US, in spite of an estimated 8 million people being infected with T. cruzi. We, and our collaborators, aim to develop new medicines, but this is becoming increasingly challenging due to lack of funding.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
‘Kissing bug’ disease should be treated as endemic in US, scientists say
People in at least eight states have been infected with Chagas, new report says, amid low awareness of disease
www.theguardian.com
September 16, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Great opportunity to join our multi-partner collaboration to develop much needed new #antifungal drugs!

#jobs, #drugdiscovery, #Cryptococcus, #Candida

@mrccmm.bsky.social @ddu-dundee.bsky.social @labwyllie.bsky.social @glaxosmithkline.bsky.social
🚨 Join the MRC CMM 🚨

Assay Development Scientist 1:
buff.ly/0RfOxPP

Assay Development Scientist 2:
buff.ly/qEgHd7Z

Postdoc Research Associate Drug Discovery:
buff.ly/8u2TV1S

Technician Assay Development & Drug Discovery:
buff.ly/CITpQ69
August 27, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Great to have a latest #Chagas disease drug discovery paper published in @rsc.org MedChem: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

This work highlights how we decide to progress or terminate series, and hopefully provides some useful approaches and lessons.

@ddu-dundee.bsky.social 🧪 #NTD #drugdiscovery
Structure–activity relationships of 1,5-dihydro-2H-benzo[b][1,4]diazepine-2,4(3H)-diones as inhibitors of Trypanosoma cruzi
Chagas disease, caused by infection with the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), is responsible for a large health burden with around 6–8 million people infected globally. The current dru...
pubs.rsc.org
July 9, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
Please repost: We have a postdoc position in Antifungal Immunity Research available to study T cell responses and fungal sensitization in atopic dermatitis. @lableibundgut.bsky.social @neil-gow.bsky.social @mrccmm.bsky.social
For more details, visit: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
June 3, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
Please repost: We have a postdoc position in Fungal Cell Wall Research available to study the Malassezia-host interaction interface in the context of atopic dermatitis. @lableibundgut.bsky.social @neil-gow.bsky.social @mrccmm.bsky.social
For more details, visit: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
June 3, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
We're proud to share our new short film shot in Colombia’s #SierraNevada where the Indigenous Wiwa people live with some of the highest rates of #Chagas disease in the world.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIo7...
The Children of the Sierra
YouTube video by Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi)
www.youtube.com
May 20, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
Yesterday, over 200 guests joined us at Swiss TPH to celebrate the legacy in of our former Director, Marcel Tanner, at the launch of his biography.

As #GlobalHealth funding declines & partnerships face pressure, the event served as a reminder to work together to ensure continued progress in health.
A Life for Global Health: Book Launch Celebrates Marcel Tanner’s Legacy
Over 200 guests gathered at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) in Allschwil today to celebrate the launch of Marcel Tanner’s biography. The festive event...
www.swisstph.ch
May 22, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
My colleague @mgerver.bsky.social has created this open letter to Keir Starmer opposing the measures announced in last week's Immigration White Paper, on economic, political and moral grounds.

Open to all academics/researchers to sign.

molliegerver.weebly.com/petition.html
Petition
An Open Letter to Keir Starmer We, the undersigned, strongly advise against the proposed changes to the UK immigration system of May 12, 2025, and your associated rhetoric. We are UK-based academics.....
molliegerver.weebly.com
May 20, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Happy to announce that today we start a new #Chagas drug discovery project, funded by MRC @ukri.org. In this project we will be carrying out lead optimisation on a series of squalene synthase inhibitors. More info at: gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref...
🧪 @ddu-dundee.bsky.social #UniversityOfDundee
Gateway to Research (GtR) - Explore publicly funded research
The Gateway to Research: UKRI portal onto publically funded research
gtr.ukri.org
April 1, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
Early reports to WHO from the 30 highest #tuberculosis (TB)-burden countries confirm that funding cuts from foreign aid, particularly from USAID, are already dismantling essential TB services.

Without urgent action, these setbacks will reverse decades of progress to #EndTB 🔗 bit.ly/4kvsu2i
March 6, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Great opportunity to come and be part of our #tuberculosis drug discovery team. This position will be responsible for integrating data from our #TB collaborators with our internal results (medchem, structural biology and pharmacokinetics). #drugdiscovery, #jobs, #science 🧪
Come work with us!
An opportunity is available within our #TB portfolio as a #DrugDiscovery #Biology coordinator. See the attached link for further details and for contact information for informal enquiries.

#BiologyJobs

www.dundee.ac.uk/work-for-us/...
Drug Discovery Biology Coordinator - UOD1860
Closing date: Thursday 3 April 2025, 23:59
www.dundee.ac.uk
March 5, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Opening for a post-doctoral position in Michael Lewis’ lab at @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social. Great opportunity for those interested in working on Trypanosoma cruzi biology and #Chagas pathogenesis! 🧪 #jobs, #NTD, #Trypanosoma

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMA372/r...
Research Fellow (110168-0225) at University of Warwick
An academic position as a Research Fellow (110168-0225) is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunities.
www.jobs.ac.uk
February 28, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
🎉 This #WorldNTDDay we celebrate Guinea for successfully eliminating sleeping sickness! 👏

📽️ Watch our movie, created in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, @ird-fr.bsky.social and Institut Pasteur de Guinée produced by Moronga Films. bit.ly/guineafilm-en

#EndTheNeglect #BeatNTDs
Bölët Mouna | Ending Sleeping Sickness in Guinea
Bölët Mouna means ‘sleeping sickness no more’ in Guinea’s national language Susu and tells the story of how research, innovation, and science are ending the the nightmare of sleeping sickness in Guinea. In January 2025 Guinea announced that it had eliminated sleeping sickness as a public health problem. This is the first disease that the country can claim to have eliminated and a major milestone in the Africa-wide campaign to eliminate sleeping sickness. The National Sleeping Sickness Programme in Guinea and its international partners – among them the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and the Institute Pasteur – have used all the tools at their disposal to achieve this milestone: small ‘tiny traps’ that dot the mangrove coasts of Guinea, rapid diagnostic tests, and revolutionary new medicines that are changing how doctors treat their patients. Read more about this achievement: https://stories.dndi.org/boletmouna/ Regarder en français: https://youtu.be/0S-ZSNcQEvY The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) is an international non-profit developing safe, effective, and affordable treatments for the most neglected patients. https://dndi.org
bit.ly
January 30, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
🧵 STATEMENT: WHO expresses deep concern on the implications of the immediate funding pause for #HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries.

These programmes provide access to life-saving HIV therapy to more than 30 million people worldwide.

Read more bit.ly/42yxxIz

1/5
January 28, 2025 at 9:37 PM
New version of our #Trypanosoma cruzi pre-print is now online. Includes new analysis on UTR complexity and reveals cell-specific repertoires for surface protein families, which may play an important role in the immune evasion strategy of this pathogen.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
The Trypanosoma cruzi cell atlas; a single-cell resource for understanding parasite population heterogeneity and differentiation.
Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, exhibits a complex life cycle with multiple hosts, stages and differentiation steps. We present a complete cell atlas for the T. cruzi life cy...
www.biorxiv.org
January 17, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Great to see the final version of our latest paper now published! We recombinantly produced the #Trypanosoma cruzi #proteasome, determined its cryo-EM structure, revealed substrate promiscuity and generated multiple mutants for better pharmacological understanding. www.jbc.org/article/S002... 🧪
Pharmacological and structural understanding of the Trypanosoma cruzi proteasome provides key insights for developing site-specific inhibitors
The proteasome is considered an excellent drug target for many infectious diseases as well as cancer. Challenges with robust and safe supply of proteasomes from infectious agents, lack of structural information, and complex pharmacology due to multiple active sites have hampered progress in the infectious disease space. We recombinantly expressed the proteasome of the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, and demonstrate pharmacological equivalence to the native T. cruzi proteasome.
www.jbc.org
January 10, 2025 at 8:53 AM
For anybody with an interest in cryptococcal meningitis. #cryptococcus #meningitis #fungal 🧪
Great upcoming Columbia ICAP Grand rounds on #Crypto in LMIC settings by two great women in medicine of Radha Rajasingham and Kiran Thakur.
January 21, 9am US EST

If you are a #Crypto millionaire and want to help millions with crypto disease, come listen.

icap.columbia.edu/news-events/...
January Grand Rounds – Cryptococcal Meningitis in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
icap.columbia.edu
January 9, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
Science’s 2024 Breakthrough of the Year is lenacapavir, an injectable drug that demonstrated remarkable success at preventing HIV infection with one shot every 6 months.

Learn more about this year's #BOTY and other big advances in science: scim.ag/3BrCtUn
December 12, 2024 at 7:02 PM
Excellent science teaching resource, building on the fascinating story of the discovery of #Trypanosoma cruzi and its vector by Carlos #Chagas.
Happy to share this work doi.org/10.1525/abt.... which delves into Chagas’ remarkable research. This piece aims to contribute to the teaching of the #historyOfScience and raise awareness about #neglectedDiseases like #Chagas, which still affects over 6 million people globally #BiologyEducation
December 12, 2024 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
🚨 Multiple #parasite -based PhD opportunities from the EastBio Doctoral Training Programme at Edinburgh Uni! 🚨

- Deadline for all are the 17th Jan '25

1. Trypanosoma co-infections: tinyurl.com/vyv855kw
2. Mitochondrial genome complexity in #trypanosoma: tinyurl.com/c6hk652f

#Parasitology #ntds
EastBio: Keeping up with the Joneses: how do trypanosome parasites adapt to coinfection with other trypanosomes? at University of Edinburgh on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - EastBio: Keeping up with the Joneses: how do trypanosome parasites adapt to coinfection with other trypanosomes? at University of Edinburgh, listed on FindAPhD.com
tinyurl.com
December 10, 2024 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Manu De Rycker
🚨 Save the Date - BSP Specialist #Kinetoplastid meeting in Czechia! 🚨

- 𝟭-𝟰𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱
- #Trypanosoma & #Leishmania biology and epidemiology
- More details to come at tinyurl.com/mpr88zed
- Followed by a mini-symposium to celebrate Prof Alan Fairlamb's achievements in the field!

#parasitology
December 5, 2024 at 6:17 PM
The University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit is now on Bluesky, find us @ddu-dundee.bsky.social! We are over 100 scientists focused on developing new treatments for tropical infectious diseases, new approaches for #drugdiscovery and proof of concept for novel targets. 🧪
drugdiscovery.dundee.ac.uk
Drug Discovery Unit - Drug Discovery Unit • Scotland, Dundee
The DDU tackles unmet medical needs through small molecule drug discovery, bridging the gap between academic scientific research and commercial drug development
drugdiscovery.dundee.ac.uk
December 5, 2024 at 8:25 AM