Alan Fairlamb

Alan Hutchinson Fairlamb, CBE, FRSE, FLS, FMedSci, FRSB (born 30 April 1947, Newcastle upon Tyne, England) is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Biochemistry in the Division of Biological Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Scotland.

[1] In 1985, Alan Fairlamb discovered a unique thiol compound present in these parasites, and named it trypanothione.

[3] For instance, antimonials neutralize the Leishmania parasite's antioxidant defence system, allowing the patient to clear the infection.

[4] Studies on the effect of drugs on trypanothione metabolism resulted in the discovery that fexinidazole is a potential oral treatment for visceral leishmaniasis.

[5] In 2006 Alan Fairlamb and Mike Ferguson became co-directors of the Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee.

Trypanothione. The glutathione moieties are shown in black and the spermidine linker in red.