Wells Timothy N C, Alonso Pedro L, Gutteridge Winston E
Medicines for Malaria Venture, 20 Route de Pré-Bois, 1215 Geneva, Switzerland.
Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2009 Nov;8(11):879-91. doi: 10.1038/nrd2972. Epub 2009 Oct 16.
Despite being one of the most prevalent tropical diseases, for many years malaria was not a commercial priority for the pharmaceutical industry. However, in response to the emergence and spread of resistance to the available antimalarial drugs, there has been a renaissance in the discovery and development of new medicines to control the disease in the last few years. The persistent threat of resistance means that new molecules with novel mechanisms of action are continually required. Furthermore, the recent call for the elimination and eradication of malaria has prompted an extension of the stages of the life cycle of malaria parasites that should be targeted by new molecules. Recent advances in genome-based technologies and in in vitro screening of whole parasites have broadened the range of therapeutic targets and are accelerating the development of a new generation of treatments for both malaria control and eradication.
尽管疟疾是最常见的热带疾病之一，但多年来它并非制药行业的商业重点。然而，由于对现有抗疟药物的耐药性出现和传播，在过去几年中，用于控制该疾病的新药研发出现了复兴。耐药性的持续威胁意味着持续需要具有新作用机制的新分子。此外，最近消除和根除疟疾的呼声促使应被新分子靶向的疟原虫生命周期阶段得到了扩展。基于基因组的技术以及对整个寄生虫的体外筛选方面的最新进展拓宽了治疗靶点的范围，并正在加速新一代用于疟疾控制和根除的治疗方法的开发。
