ABSTRACT
Medicinal plants are often used in the treatment of diseases, including malaria. Isolation of compounds from crude extracts, with the well-known examples of artemisinin and quinine, is further evidence that medicinal plants are a potential source of new drugs and lead compounds in drug discovery. This chapter presents the drug discovery process from medicinal plants, ethnobotanical research, and bioassay-guided fractionation to the eventual isolation of active compounds. Taxonomically, medicinal plants could be prioritized for further research either by family or genus, although the former may be less targeted, especially if large families are investigated. The hepatic stage is an attractive target for antimalarial drug discovery due to fewer parasites involved and thus a reduced likelihood of drug resistance development. Atovaquone, another antimalarial drug used as a prophylactic drug in travel medicine, is a synthetic derivative of the natural product lapachol, a naphthoquinone.
