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Cancer drugs to kill malaria parasite
Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, which is transmitted via the bites of infected mosquitoes. In the human body, the parasites reproduce in the liver, and then infect and multiply in red blood cells. Joint research led by EU-funded laboratories at the Inserm-EPFL Joint Laboratory, Lausanne, (Switzerland/France), Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular parasitology, University of Glasgow (Scotland), and Bern University (Switzerland) showed that, in order to proliferate, the malaria parasite depends upon a signalling pathway present in the host's liver cells and in red blood cells. They demonstrated that the parasite hijacks the kinases (enzymes) that are active in human cells, to serve its own purposes. When the research team used cancer chemotherapy drugs called kinase inhibitors to treat red blood cells infected with malaria , the parasite was stopped in its tracks.
A new strategy opens up
Until now the malaria parasite has managed to avoid control by rapidly developing drug resistance through mutations and hiding from the immune system inside liver and red blood cells in the body of the host, where it proliferates. The discovery that the parasite needs to hijack some enzymes from the cell it lives in opens up a whole new strategy for fighting the disease. Instead of targeting the parasite itself, the idea is to make the host cell environment useless to it, by blocking the kinases in the cell. This strategy deprives the parasite of a major modus operandi for development of drug resistance.
Several kinase-inhibiting chemotherapy drugs are already used clinically in cancer therapy, and many more have already passed phase-I and phase II clinical trials. Even though these drugs have toxic side-effects, they are still being used over extended periods for cancer treatment. In the case of malaria, which would require a shorter treatment period, the problem of toxicity would be less acute. Researchers are proposing therefore that these drugs should be evaluated immediately for anti-malarial properties, drastically reducing the time and cost required to put this new malaria-fighting strategy into practice.
The next steps will include mobilising public and industrial partners to verify the efficacy of kinase inhibitors in malaria patients and to adjust the dose through clinical trials, before the new treatments can be authorised and made available to malaria patients worldwide.
Background
Since 2002, the EU has invested nearly GBP 156 million (EUR 180 million) in malaria research through the EU's Framework Programmes for Research (FP6, 2002-2006, and FP7, 2007-2013).
The EU also contributes to the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) which aims to accelerate the development of new or improved drugs, vaccines and microbicides against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Established in 2003, this successful ongoing European and African collaboration focuses on clinical trials as well as capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa. To date, 10 clinical trials on malaria costing GBP 60 million (EUR 69 million) have been financed under EDCTP with GBP 31 million (EUR 35 million) support from the EU.
Article on the research:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21371233
About malaria:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/health/infectious-diseases/poverty-diseases/malaria_en.html
http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/healthtopics/malaria/Pages/index.aspx
http://ec.europa.eu/health/communicable_diseases/policy/index_en.htm
http://www.who.int/malaria/world_malaria_report_2010/worldmalariareport2010.pdf 
http://www.edctp.org
Annex – Details on research projects involved in the discovery
For more information, please contact the London press office on 020 7973 1971.
Please note: all amounts expressed in sterling are for information purposes only.
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