Depok (14/5/2019). An academic from the Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA), Universitas Indonesia, Dr. Anom Bowolaksono, M.Sc., has recently achieved a notable accomplishment by being selected as one of six top researchers to receive research funding through the Newton Fund research program, a collaboration between the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education.
This was announced by the Indonesian Minister of Research, Technology, and Higher Education and the British Ambassador during a press conference on research cooperation in infectious diseases between the Government of Indonesia and the United Kingdom, held on Monday (13/5/2019) at Building D of the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education, Jakarta.
In this bilateral cooperation, Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education, together with the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, allocated Rp 37 billion to fund six of the best research projects in the field of infectious diseases over a three-year period.
Speaking to the FMIPA UI public relations team via a WhatsApp message, Anom explained that he will collaborate with Dr. R. Tedjo Sasmono, Ph.D. (Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology) and a UK-based researcher, Dr. Peter G. Barlow, BSc (Hons), PhD (Research Group, School of Applied Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University), to carry out a research project entitled “Cathelicidins as Novel Therapeutic Antivirals for Dengue Infection.”
In their research, he, Tedjo Sasmono, and Peter will test cathelicidin molecules produced by the human immune system to determine whether these molecules can be modified to combat dengue fever.
Cathelicidin compounds, Anom further explained, are members of the Host Defence Peptide group, which possess some of the strongest antiviral capabilities found in humans and other organisms. This study is a follow-up research, as previous findings have shown that cathelicidin immunomodulators have excellent antiviral activity and strong potential to be used in the treatment of dengue infections.
This research will be conducted over a three-year period, with the objectives of determining the differential characterization of dengue virus infection expression effects, studying the induction of apoptosis targets using exogenous cathelicidins, and assessing the potential of vitamin D and phenylbutyrate to be used as adjunct therapies for viral infections through stimulation of endogenous cathelicidin expression.
The research series will begin with the isolation of several related proteins, followed by expression testing and validation. In the second year, the study will focus on inducing and regulating autophagy and testing the activity of the associated proteins. In the final year, exogenous cathelicidin treatment trials will be conducted for dengue virus infection.
He hopes that cathelicidin compounds, as a candidate for a novel antiviral treatment for dengue virus, can eventually be used as a widely applicable therapy for dengue infection cases in the future.
