Renslo Boosts Search for New Malaria Drugs

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry Professor Adam Renslo, PhD, is senior author of a new paper in Science Advances that details how a group of UCSF chemists found a way to rearrange the atoms in a new generation of malaria drugs, making them easier to put into pill form without forfeiting their effectiveness. 

“For a disease like malaria, you would ideally like to cure the patient with one pill or a handful of pills and be done with it,” Renslo said about the research, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. “A multi-day regimen risks missing a dose.” 

Malaria kills some 600,000 people a year, most of them children in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the parasite that causes the disease has evolved to resist the best of malaria drugs and is spreading from Southeast Asia into Africa, new malaria drugs are desperately needed. The global health community has scrambled to find them. 

“Now that drug resistance is in Africa, many more lives are at risk,” Renslo said. “These new molecules could give us the upper hand we need to control this deadly disease.” 

Read the complete story: This Chemical Trick Could Turn Losing Malaria Drug Into a Winner