Malaria Drug Target Raises Hopes for New Treatments

Scientists from the University of York are part of a UK team which has made an important step towards new malaria treatments by identifying a way to stop malaria parasites from multiplying.

In a study*, the research team shows that the activity of an enzyme called NMT is essential for the survival and viability of the most common malaria parasite. The team, which includes researchers from the York Structural Biology Laboratory in the Department of Chemistry at York, are working to design molecules that inhibit NMT’s function, and hope to start clinical trials of potential treatments within four years.

The new study shows that NMT is involved in a wide range of essential processes in the parasite cell, including the production of proteins that enable malaria to be transmitted between humans and mosquitoes, and proteins that enable malaria to cause long-term infection.

The researchers have tested a handful of molecules that block the activity of NMT in the parasite living inside human red blood cells, but further refinement will be needed before a treatment is ready to be tested in humans.

The discovery is the culmination of a five-year project by a consortium of researchers from Imperial College London, the National Institute for Medical Research, the University of Nottingham, the University of York, and Pfizer, funded by the Medical Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

*Published in Nature Chemistry