Category: NEWS

As we look towards a new year, we wanted to share some highlights from 2022, a year that saw many new advances and developments in our research on Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) and Onchocerciasis (Oncho). LF research Cote d’Ivoire. In late winter, DOLF team members traveled to Côte d’Ivoire for 12-month follow-up visits for patients enrolled […]

PloS “Collections” are useful for readers and researchers alike, because provide easy access to related articles on high priority topics that have been published in PLoS journals at different times. This collection (published June 16, 2022) focuses on clinical trials and community studies of the safety, efficacy, and acceptability of the triple drug regimen IDA […]

Development of new treatments for Riverblindness: Facilitated histological assessment of Onchocerca volvulus nodules to detect treatment effects on adult worms Adult O. volvulus worms reside in subcutaneous nodules and can live up to 15 years. It requires special expert knowledge to differentiate natural morphological changes during its life span from changes induced by anti-filarial drugs […]

Joining the team in November, Betsy brings over 15 years of global health experience, including nearly a decade of research administration at Washington University to the team. In her previous role as Associate Director for the International Center for Child Health and Development, she helped develop and manage the center’s growing capacity building arm as […]

DOLF Presentations at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (Virtual, November 2021) Symposium: Clinical development of new treatments to support the global elimination of onchocerciasis. GJ Weil, C Hanson, N Opoku, A Hoerauf, S. Specht, M Sullivan. Coverage and impact of a single dose of ivermectin, DEC and albendazole […]

First Half of 2021 Eneanya OA, Koudou BG, Aboulaye M, Elvis AA, Souleymane Y, Kouakou MM, Weil GJ, Fischer PU. Progress towards onchocerciasis elimination in Côte d’Ivoire: A geospatial modelling study. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2021 Feb 10;15(2):e0009091. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0009091. eCollection 2021 Feb PMID: 33566805. This study reviewed dramatic improvements in onchocerciasis endemicity that have occurred […]

The DOLF project is pleased to share several recent publications from clinical trials and community studies of alternative treatments for lymphatic filariasis. All of these have been published with open access. The first two articles (by Campillo et al and Ouattara et al) provide further strong evidence in support of the WHO recommendation to use […]

DOLF project ophthalmologists Michael Gyasi and Augustine Hong have published a short case report of a patient with ocular onchocerciasis. This includes a photo and a very interesting video with motile microfilariae in the anterior chamber of the eye (open access, see “supplements”) that people may want to use for teaching or social mobilization. Microfilarial […]

DOLF researchers provide update on long term effect of IDA triple drug treatment for lymphatic filariasis. N Engl J Med. 2018;382(20):1956-1957

The lab in St. Louis received an Olympus VS120-S6 microscope and slide scanner. Microscopy is essential to study the effect of drugs on adult Onchocerca volvulus worms. However, drug-related morphological changes are sometimes difficult to differentiate from age-related changes of the worms. Unfortunately, is the technical expertise to judge worms in histological nodule sections vanishing […]

Dr. Christopher King and his team from Case Western Reserve University and Dr. Alison Krentel from the Bruyere Research Institute in Ottawa have returned to East New Britain to continue their research. Dr. Krentel will train local staff on procedures for assessing the acceptability of the triple drug mass drug administration that was provided province-wide […]

Nicole Fetcho joined the DOLF Project in October 2019 as a Statistical Data Analyst and Data Manager. Nicole is well prepared for this work with a Master of Public Health degree (with a focus on Biostati­­stics and Epidemiology) from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Her MPH practicum work […]

Researchers uncover molecular changes associated with treating lymphatic filariasis

New Global Health Program Manager (Operations) – The DOLF Project Teresa joins the DOLF project as the Global Health Program Manager for Operations taking over for Rachel Anderson. She joins us with two years of health care research and data analysis experience at the State of Massachusetts’s Center for Health Information and Analysis. Prior to […]

The DOLF Project is proud to announce publication in PLOS Medicine of results form a major safety study investigating the use of a triple drug combination “IDA” as a treatment regimen for lymphatic filariasis. The study enrolled more than 26,000 participants in five countries. Results from this study suggest that IDA is safe enough for […]

DOLF Researcher Dr. Christine Dubray, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, was the keynote speaker for the Washington University Medical School’s 21st Global Health & Medicine Symposium held on April 17. The title of her talk was, “A global health career on the front lines, and what I […]

DOLF investigators Christopher King and James Kazura from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland with colleagues at the Papua New Guinea Institute for Medical Research and at Washington University in St. Louis have just published important results from a randomized clinical trial. This trial tested the safety and efficacy of a new triple drug treatment […]

Identifying solutions for enrollment, regulatory requirements, drug procurement, and improved collaboration for an international clinical trial in Hohoe Ghana By Rachel Bick and Philip BudgeOctober 5, 2018 The DOLF Project recently sent two team members, Philip Budge and Rachel Bick, to visit the Nick Opoku and the DOLF Onchocerciasis research team in Hohoe, Ghana. Our […]

The DOLF project, a collaboration of partners from Africa, Asia, the U.S. and Europe, has secured a new grant of 2.1 Million dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This grant will fund a clinical trial of a new treatment for onchocerciasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms that is also known as River […]

2018 Summer Research Program Reflections  – Complexities Behind Lymphatic Filariasis July 12,2018 The blog is following the student participants in this year’s Institute for Public Health Summer Research  Program  (https://publichealth. wustl.edu/resources/summer-research­ program/). Each student will be providing their own reflections from a Summer Research Program Seminar Series (https://publichealth. wustl.edu/series/summer-research­ program-seminars/ ) event. Some students will […]

At the 2018 GAELF Meeting, Dr. Gary Weil shared perspectives on how the new treatment combination (IDA) could accelerate elimination of LF.

The DOLF project is pleased to announce that Rachel Bick has joined our team as Global Health Research Project Manager Rachel brings international experience in global health and a strong academic background to this role. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Factors Psychology degree from the University of Utah and a Master of Public Health […]

Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) released their fifth progress report on the London Declaration on NTDs. The report describes the progress made toward achieving the goals set out by the London Declaration toward the control, elimination, and eradication of 10 NTDs. DOLF research on a more effective triple drug combination for lymphatic filariasis […]

Top row: Eric Ottesen, Phillip Miller, Peter Fischer, Alex Debrah, Ron Don, Achim Hoerauf, Tom Kanyok, Julie Jacobson, Chris King, Kerstin Fischer, Tania Supali, Sabine Mand, Charles Mackenzie, Dan Goldberg, Kapa Ramaiah, Rao Ramakrishna, Andrew Majewski, Dao-Jun Jiang. Bottom row: Gary Weil, Amy Rush, Yao Sodahlon, Eddie Thomsen, Manasseh Baea, Fatorma Bolay, Amy Klion, Wilma […]

January 28, 2010 By Michael C. Purdy Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a five-year, $13 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve efforts to eliminate two parasitic diseases, elephantiasis and river blindness. These diseases belong to a group of infections known as neglected tropical diseases, which […]