Welcome to the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research. We are a group of scientists who investigate some of the nastiest parasites in the world, and make new medicines to fight the diseases they cause. We're based at the University of Dundee, in Scotland.

One of the diseases we're fighting is malaria. It causes a great deal of suffering in the world, with around 500,000 people dying every year. Half the world's population is at risk from catching the disease, and many of the medicines that we used to use are no longer effective. The parasites have developed resistance to them, which means we need to make new ones.

Making a new medicine is very expensive - it costs in the region of $500,000,000 and can take 15 years! We call this process 'drug discovery'. We have the added challenge that many of the people who would benefit most from new medicines against parasitic diseases aren't well off.

Of course, if someone was to steal our research, they could make millions by selling it to rich nations. They could also stop it reaching the people who really need it - the people it was made for! It would be terrible if anything happened to any of our researchers, with their precious knowledge...