New Delhi: The Jawaharlal Nehru University team of scientists found a new way to fight malaria by targeting host lipids using an antitumor drug. Antitumor agents kill cells that divide rapidly and they are also used in cancer treatment. The mosquito-borne disease, malaria, is caused by a parasite that multiplies first in liver cells and then they multiply in red blood cells.
The parasite grows, multiplies, and further invades the red blood cells. According to the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are four types of malaria parasites that infect humans which are Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. Ovale, and P. malariae.
The team of scientists led by Professor Shailaja Singh at the Special Center for Molecular Medicine at JNU has tested the antitumor agent and found that it does eliminate the source of the parasite and eventually kills it. The findings of this research have been published in the American Society for Microbiology's IMPACT journal and it states that the development of resistance to practically all anti-malarial drugs is a challenge to current malaria eradication and its eradication efforts.