Dr Manu De Rycker

Manu De Rycker is Head of Pathogen Biology and Portfolio Leader for the kinetoplastid and antifungal drug discovery programmes at the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) at the University of Dundee. Manu holds a Master of Science in bioscience engineering from the University of Ghent, Belgium and a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Following postdoctoral work with Professor Peter Parker at the Cancer Research UK Lincoln’s Inn Field laboratories (London), he moved to the DDU at the University of Dundee in 2009 to develop high-content imaging assays for the newly started visceral leishmaniasis drug discovery programme.

Manu now heads the group that develop and run cell-based assays for the parasitology and antifungal programmes in the DDU. The team has successfully built extensive screening cascades for Leishmania donovani and Trypanosoma cruzi that comprise high-throughput primary screening assays as well as advanced secondary assays with high physiological relevance, including assays for persister parasites. These cascades have proven pivotal to rapidly identify new compounds with the best chance of demonstrating in vivo efficacy. For this work the team were co-recipients of the 2024 DNDi Project of the Year award. The group also investigate fundamental biology relevant to drug discovery, enable new modalities for anti-infective drug discovery and work on developing a screening cascade for Cryptococcus drug discovery.

As Portfolio Leader for Kinetoplastid Drug Discovery Manu leads a substantial drug discovery programme focused on delivering new pre-clinical candidates for Chagas disease. In collaboration with GSK this programme has developed two new pre-clinical candidates for visceral leishmaniasis. Manu works closely with biologists, chemists and pharmacologists to deliver further candidates for these neglected tropical diseases. In 2024 the team were awarded the Biochemical Society Award for Industry and Academic Collaboration. Recently Manu has also started building an antifungal drug discovery programme, to tackle deadly invasive fungal diseases that disproportionately affect people in low- and middle-income countries.