The Anti-Wolbachia Consortium (A-WOL) is screening a diverse range of compounds to identify new macrofilaricidal drugs to treat onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis. A 384-well format assay has been developed, using the Operetta system in conjunction with optimised Wolbachia growth dynamics in the C6/36 Aedes albopictus mosquito cell line. This assay has dramatically increased the capacity and throughput of the A-WOL compound library screening programme by 25-fold (from 1,000 compounds/month with the previous quantitative PCR-based method to 25,000 compounds/month), as well as reducing compound incubation time from 9 to 7 days. To date, one pre-clinical candidate (macrolide) and 2 clinical candidates (registered drugs) have been identified by the programme, together with >6 lead series.

Reference: Clare, R. H. et al. (2014). "Development and Validation of a High-Throughput Anti-Wolbachia Whole-Cell Screen: A Route to Macrofilaricidal Drugs against Onchocerciasis and Lymphatic Filariasis". Journal of Biomolecular Screening, 20(1), 64–69.