Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded $228,000 to the University of Georgia Research Foundation through the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855) on July 1, 2026, for a two-year project concluding June 30, 2028. The award funds the development of parasite glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) libraries to advance parasitic disease research and drug development. The project will establish an enzymatic pipeline for synthesizing parasite GPI anchors—glycolipid structures essential to parasite cell surfaces and critical to host invasion and immune evasion—using commercially available precursors. Primary deliverables include a robust in vitro synthesis platform, optimized enzymatic catalysts, and modular GPI libraries that enable researchers to investigate GPI modifications and develop GPI-based therapeutics targeting parasitic infections such as malaria and toxoplasmosis.

This research addresses a critical gap in parasite glycobiology by providing researchers with access to defined GPI intermediates and parasite-specific structures that are difficult to synthesize or isolate naturally. The project's first objective focuses on screening multiple enzyme homologs and optimizing reaction conditions to generate functional GPI core structures, creating a flexible toolbox for further parasitic disease research and drug design targeting the parasite GPI biosynthesis pathway.