New Class of Antimalarial Compounds Discovered

According to this article, Elizabeth Winzeler and other colleagues of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) and The Scripps Research Institute have discovered a class of compounds that are effective in combating malaria.  These classes of compound are better able to target the blood and liver stages of malaria in mice; the liver stage, in particular, has been an ineffective target for anitmalarial drugs because of their negative side effects.  The malarial parasite, Plasmodium, which is carried by mosquitoes, infects humans by travelling to the liver first and then subsequently moving into the blood.  Winzeler and her team screened for compounds that showed effectiveness in treating both liver and blood stage infection; they found that a chemical called imidazolopiperazine was most effective for both.  Another attractive feature of the imidazolopiperazine class is that it is chemically unrelated to any existing antimalarial drug; this means that there are few opportunities for resistance.  The imaging of mice treated with this compound proves it is effective in both the liver and blood stages.  In addition to this, the genomes of resistant strain parasites (bred in the lab) were sequenced for the identification of the mutated gene; this information will help to better understand the parasite and lead to the development of new drugs.  In my opinion, the best part of this research is that, an effort to promote new drug discoveries, the team has made their data available online.