ABSTRACT
Within the drug discovery process, serendipity is often counterposed to the rational design approach, in terms of both logic and chronology. Moving toward the concept of hybrid compounds currently most used in drug design and medicinal chemistry, there are examples of molecular hybrids obtained by fermentation in enriched culture media or by genetic engineering. This chapter describes representative examples of molecular hybridization applied to the neglected tropical diseases. In addition to neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis and malaria, a mycobacterial and a parasitic disease, respectively, which are widely diffused within tropical regions, are also considered. The chapter reviews scientific reports dealing with antimalarial hybrid compounds. The molecular hybridization approach combines known pharmacophoric portions present in different drugs in a single multipharmacophoric scaffold that could act as a multitarget agent or as a single target agent with better efficacy. In fact, many cases of hybrid compounds completely lack their biological activity, as the antiplasmodial hybrids that are generated without the quinoline scaffold.
