In developed countries, it is said that "threats of
infectious diseases are already thought as things of the past". However, as you can see in the case of
Ebola hemorrhagic fever that occurred in West Africa, this is a big mistake. Among
infectious diseases, only
smallpox has been successfully eradicated worldwide. In addition to the three major
infectious diseases of HIV/
AIDS,
tuberculosis, and
malaria, there is another group called emerging and
reemerging infectious diseases. Recently,
neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) have been listed as threats by the WHO, as have
drug-resistant bacteria. The spread of these pathogens is increasing due to an increase in global travel.
Malaria and more than half of the NTDs are
parasitic diseases, such as
trypanosomiasis and soil-borne
helminthiasis. These are caused by parasites, with eukaryotes similar to their host mammals. In the case of these NTDs, protective immune responses induced by differences between a pathogen and host do not work well, and there is no
vaccine against parasites. As for drugs developed to treat these diseases, because the properties of
enzymes and target receptors are very similar, and effective drugs simultaneously show efficacy against both the disease and the host, severe side effects often occur. Therefore, the search for targets specifically present in parasites, and screening for drugs that inhibit their physiological functions, is extremely important. Here, as an example of the development of
antiparasitic drugs, I will introduce a study on
malaria.