# A Redesigning Existing Drugs against Indispensable Targets (ReEDIT) platform technology for discovery of novel drugs to treat fungal infections

> **NIH NIH R43** · KATHERA BIOSCIENCE INC. · 2024 · $298,530

## Abstract

Project Summary
There is a worldwide need for improved treatment of systemic, life-threatening fungal infections.
Current therapies are limited by the small number of approved drugs, toxicities, drug-drug
interactions, mode of administration, and growing problems of drug resistance and emerging
pathogens. Treatment also suffers from a lack of rapid clinical diagnoses, leading to dependence
on broad-spectrum antifungal drugs. Moreover, existing antifungal drug classes target membrane
and cell wall integrity, and there is a need to develop drugs with new modes of action. Essential
genes are attractive antifungal drug targets because they are required for fungal pathogen growth
and survival. C. albicans is the major human fungal pathogen and has the most robust genetic
tools among the pathogenic fungi. We propose a “Redesigning Existing Drugs against
Indispensable Targets” (ReEDIT) strategy that focuses on essential genes in C. albicans that
have conserved human orthologs with known Chemically Tractable Inhibitors (CTIs) that are
approved drugs or are in clinical or preclinical development. ReEDIT is an integrative approach
using antifungal growth susceptibility, biochemical, structural, bioinformatic, and cheminformatic
data, as well as molecular modeling studies to prioritize potential fungal targets. The specific aims
of this Phase I proposal are to (1) identify essential genes in pathogenic fungi that encode
druggable targets and (2) advance at least one essential target and drug series into lead
optimization. The outcome will advance one or a small number of essential fungal targets and
drug candidate(s) into a program for lead optimization and pre-clinical studies (Phase II). The
long-term objectives are to develop inhibitors of novel essential fungal proteins into new classes
of broad-spectrum antifungal drugs. To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically
assess a comprehensive set of conserved essential fungal genes and cognate inhibitors
to be advanced for antifungal drug development.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10906002
- **Project number:** 5R43AI170288-02
- **Recipient organization:** KATHERA BIOSCIENCE INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Stephen Parent
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $298,530
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-08-11 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10906002

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10906002, A Redesigning Existing Drugs against Indispensable Targets (ReEDIT) platform technology for discovery of novel drugs to treat fungal infections (5R43AI170288-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10906002. Licensed CC0.

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