IRBM publish malaria breakthrough research in Nature Communications Biology

In a collaboration with Istituto Superiore di Sanità and CNR, IRBM has published research that identified new molecules which block the transmission of the malaria parasite from an infected person to the mosquito, the first step in developing new drugs to eliminate this major infectious disease. This work identified seven molecular structures (chemotypes), three of which have never been identified in the past, able to kill gametocytes and prevent the development of the parasite in the mosquito. Fundamental to the success of this collaboration was the efficient screening funnel that allowed the rapid screen of 120,000 compounds. This number of compounds corresponds to about a third of those tested so far by various laboratories all over the world in the search for new parasite anti-transmission drugs and the results pave the way to wider screens to identify even better compounds against parasite transmission.