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Novel Molecular Targets for Antimalarial Drug Development
Author(s) -
Sahu Nitendra K.,
Sahu Sanjeev,
Kohli Dharm Veer
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
chemical biology and drug design
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1747-0285
pISSN - 1747-0277
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-0285.2008.00640.x
Subject(s) - malaria , drug discovery , drug , drug development , drug resistance , computational biology , plasmodium falciparum , biology , medicine , pharmacology , bioinformatics , immunology , genetics
Malaria with one million deaths and about 500 million new cases reported annually is a challenge to drug therapy and discovery. As current antimalarial therapeutics become increasingly ineffective because of parasitic resistance, there exists an urgent need to develop and pursue new therapeutic strategies. Antimalarial drug development can follow several strategies, ranging from minor modifications of existing agents to the design of novel agents that act against new targets. Recent advances in our knowledge of parasite biology as well as the availability of the genome sequence provide a wide range of novel targets for drug design. Several promising targets for drug intervention have been revealed in recent years. This review discusses novel molecular targets of the malaria parasite available to the drug discovery scientist.