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Drug discovery

Chemical diversity targets malaria

Nature volume 538, pages 323–325 (2016)Cite this article

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A molecule selected from a library of compounds that have structures similar to natural products targets several stages of the malarial parasite's life cycle, offering single-dose treatment of the disease in mouse models. See Article p.344

Eliminating malaria would save more than 400,000 lives annually, mainly those of young children in sub-Saharan Africa, and prevent the approximately 200 million cases of the disease that arise each year1. Achieving this will require medicines that can eliminate all three stages of Plasmodium parasite infection in humans. On page 344, Kato et al.2 report compounds, known as bicyclic azetidines, that display this multistage activity.

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Figure 1: A compound that targets all parasite stages of malarial infection.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. David A. Fidock is in the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York 10032, USA.,

    David A. Fidock

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  1. David A. Fidock
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Correspondence to David A. Fidock.

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Fidock, D. Chemical diversity targets malaria. Nature 538, 323–325 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19481

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