Creation of antimalarial lead compounds based on marine calcium pump inhibitors

Objectives

The main aim of this project is to create new antimalarial drug lead compounds by focusing on the calcium pump (PfATP6) on the endoplasmic reticulum membrane of malaria parasites.

The specific objectives of this project are to:

1. create PfATP6 inhibitors that exhibit high selective toxicity by modifying their chemical structures based on the potent mammalian calcium pump (SERCA) inhibitors biselyngbyaside (BLS) and iezoside (IZS) that the applicant has previously discovered; and
2. discover new calcium pump inhibitors from marine cyanobacteria that can be developed into antimalarial drugs by using a unique biological activity evaluation method that observes changes in cell morphology and Ca2+ concentration as indicator.