Last Updated: 06/01/2025
Using “Click Chemistry” to Identify Potential Drug Targets in Plasmodium
Objectives
The main goal of this project is to initiate studies designed to identify the target of a molecule that blocks liver infection by the parasite, in the petri dish and in mice.
Malaria is a deadly disease with few effective treatments. U.S. military personnel are routinely exposed to malaria in several areas of active operations. Their deployment in malaria-endemic regions is predicted to continue in the near future. Therefore, there is an urgent need to prevent and treat malaria more effectively.
We hope to find better drugs by better understanding the life-cycle of the parasite that causes it. We will focus on the weakest link of the parasite’s life-cycle in humans, its infection of the liver. We will use chemical approaches to identify parasite proteins that are required for liver infection and new ways of developing drugs to block liver infection. By identifying the target of the molecule, we can design more powerful drugs that are safe and effective for use in humans.
Sep 2013 — Mar 2015
$199,000
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