
18/10/2024
Discovery
NIAID-funded researchers have shown that a promising antimalarial treatment is effective against both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant malaria parasites in laboratory and mouse studies. The experimental treatment, MED6-189, is a synthetic drug that is based on a compound found in marine sponges. The study, published in Science, primarily comes from researchers at the University of California-Riverside, UC-Irvine, and the Yale School of Medicine. MED6-189, the researchers showed, disrupts the lifecycle of the parasite, slows its growth, and kills it. The research team is hoping to gain approval to test the treatment in a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate it for safety and side effects.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)