Of those deaths are children

50% of the world’s population lives in areas at risk of malaria transmission. Check the map for more detailed statistics on species-specific infection.

Resistance And Current Treatment

As of today, the most potent anti-malarial drug is Artemisinin. But the world is heading toward a crisis as more cases of Artemisinin resistance pop up globally. Our last line of defense is ACT (Artemisinin Combination Therapies) and it’s failing fast, potentially making malaria untreatable in the years to come.

Our Solution

We are designing a novel class of orally administrable drugs to effectively treat malaria and bypass pathogen resistance. The drugs have two components: an inhibitory peptide molecule and a cyclotide backbone

Tackling Resistance

Creating a library of drugs ensures that the treatment of Malaria is not affected by the development of resistance to drugs by Plasmodium falciparum. Once it develops resistance to a particular drug, a different one can be picked from the library to treat Malaria, effectively circumventing the problem of drug resistance. .

The Drug

We aim to design a library of inhibitory peptide molecules which target crucial host-pathogen interactions in the blood stage of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. These peptide molecules are then grafted into a cyclotide backbone, which acts as the drug scaffold. Cyclotides are robust, cost-effective, efficient and resistant to degradation, making them the perfect templates for drug design.

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Diagnostics

A lack of infrastructure in remote areas was a major hindrance in eliminating malaria around the world. The accurate diagnosis of malaria requires trained healthcare workers as well as sophisticated microscopes, both of which are often absent in remote areas. We aim to create a portable diagnostics kit that will effectively increase testing capabilities. Only a picture of their blood smear is needed to test for the presence of malaria parasites using a Web API, making malaria diagnosis easy, efficient and accessible.

Human Practices

Malaria cannot be eradicated without the active participation of the communities affected by it. With this philosophy in mind, we conducted extensive public health awareness programmes to educate people on the prevention and treatment of malaria.

Team:IISER-Pune-India