Email

saward@liverpool.ac.uk

Telephone

+44 (0) 151 705 3286

Fax

+44 (0) 151 705 3371

Insitution

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM)

Address

Pembroke Place, Liv

Liverpool, L3 5QA

Home Page

http://www.liv.ac.uk/lstm

Steve Ward - Scientific Director

The tropical pharmacology group led by Steve Ward is based in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and has over twenty five years experience in the chemotherapy of tropical disease, with an emphasis on malaria. The group is multidisciplinary with expertise in parasitology, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, pharmacology and chemistry. The group has a molecule to man philosophy with basic research hypotheses being generated and tested which have clear potential to progress to translational research areas and finally to the patient.

The focus of the groups work is aimed at:

1. Understanding the chemical, molecular and cellular basis of drug action and drug resistance in tropical pathogens with an emphasis on human malaria.
2. Understanding the contribution of host dependent factors to chemotherapeutic response.
3. Using this fundamental information in the rational design and evaluation of novel chemotherapeutic agents
4. The use of the information obtained above to improve the effectiveness of existing chemotherapeutic agents.
5. Investigating fundamental pathogen-specific biological processes with a view to identifying unique targets for chemotherapy

The Ward group has made seminal contributions toward our understanding of antimalarial drug action and drug resistance mechanisms in P.falciparum. This basic science data has been integrated into a number of rational drug design programmes one of which has generated the iosqunie series of 4-aminoquinolnes. Professor Ward has been a member of three Public Private Partnerships focussed on the development and registration of antimalarial drugs including the Lapdap project which was successfully registered with the MHRA in 2003.