Contemporary Approaches for Malaria Drug Discovery

Abstract

Malaria is a major global health problem, caused by Plasmodium sps. Clinical symptoms of the disease are associated with asexual stages of parasite life cycle in human erythrocytes whereas transmission of disease is attributed to sexual stages in mosquito. Increasing resistance to known antimalarial drugs has resulted in the evolution of newer approaches of drug discovery against the disease. The conventional phenotypic screening approaches of drug discovery enable high-throughput screening of a library of chemical compounds for antimalarial effect followed by target identification and its experimental validation. Alternatively, target-based approach for drug discovery involves screening of compounds against known parasite targets by in vitro and in vivo studies. This chapter focuses on the contemporary approaches in antimalarial drug discovery that promise the development of an effective strategy to combat malaria.