The University of Dundee’s Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) is to share in €1.5 million funding as part of a consortium of African and European research institutions seeking to tackle pressing public health challenges.

The European Union funding, along with additional resources from the Swiss government, will help the consortium build knowledge, skills and innovative capacities for drug discovery in sub-Saharan Africa. The associated project, RAFIKI, which launched in January 2025, will also build new avenues for cooperation between African and European researchers.

Sub-Saharan Africa bears a disproportionate burden of global infectious diseases, with significant ramifications for the public health and development of the African continent. Although recent years have seen promising progress for drug discovery in Africa, local research communities still lack sufficient infrastructure to develop tailored solutions for these critical public health needs.

The DDU will receive more than €275,000 as part of the initiative. This will allow Dundee researchers to provide training and mentorship to scientists at institutions within the consortium. This includes placements in the DDU and online courses, as well as general support for the mentorship, workshops, outreach and sustainability work packages of the project.

DDU Training Manager Suze Farrell said, “We are delighted to be part of this consortium and to be able to lend Dundee’s world-renowned expertise in drug discovery to our partners in African institutions to allow them to build up their own capacities.

“Combined with infrastructure development and stakeholder engagement, the RAFIKI award will help accelerate the growth of drug discovery in the African continent.”

The DDU was established in 2006 to translate world‐class biology research into new de-risked drug targets and candidate drugs. It has been responsible for six compounds going into human clinical trials, five of which were invented by the DDU. This includes cabamaquine, a compound with the potential to not only treat malaria with a single dose, but also potentially protect people from contracting the disease (chemoprotection) and prevent its spread.

The RAFIKI project unites key players from the African and European drug discovery scenes to bring accelerated and sustainable growth to the sub-Saharan African drug discovery community and connect them with global research networks.

A central mission of RAFIKI is to offer essential training opportunities to sub-Saharan African drug discovery researchers. This investment in training, particularly for early-career researchers, will be pivotal for fostering a highly skilled research ecosystem across Africa.

The DDU’s partners include EU-OPENSCREEN (Germany), the H3D Foundation (South Africa), the University of Ghana, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, Stellenbosch University (South Africa), University of Cape Town (South Africa), University of Zambia and the Medicines for Malaria Venture (Switzerland).