Discovering new host-directed therapies to treat inflammation

Abstract

Dr Fanucchi is a South African born cell biologist who was recently awarded the 2017 L'Oreal/UNESCO International Rising Talent Award (15 of which are awarded worldwide annually); she was also a finalist for the 2016/2017 TW Kambule-NSTF Award for Emerging Researchers. Dr Fanucchi works as a senior scientist in Prof. Musa Mhlanga's laboratory; Prof. Mhlanga is the Director of the Biomedical and Translational Research Initiative, which is a new biomedical translational focused initiative lead by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the University of Cape Town and funded by the Department of Science and Technology. In 2003, an article published in Time magazine referred to inflammation as the 'silent killer'. It was around this time that medical doctors and scientists from different backgrounds started to realise that many disease states, including various cancers and autoimmune diseases, had an inflammatory basis. This important realisation revealed that we need to rethink how we treat these diseases. In particular, we need to carefully consider how inflammation impacts disease progression.