Ian Gilbert’s team of researchers at University of Dundee's Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) published a paper “A novel multiple-stage antimalarial agent that inhibits protein synthesis”  in Nature (522 page 315–320; doi:10.1038/nature14451). This video accompanies the paper by illustrating the challenges and solution offered by the DDU's research.

 

Malaria is a major problem in many areas of the world and it is estimated that about 200 million cases of malaria every year and over half a million deaths. The properties of compound DDD107498 are particularly exciting as not only does it have potential for treating malaria with a single dose, it may also prevent the spread of malaria from infected people and it has shown potential to prevent people developing malaria in the first place.