ABSTRACT
Malaria is among the most important parasitic diseases in humans. In 2016, 216 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, with an estimated 445,000 deaths globally in 91 countries. Most antimalarial drugs currently in use target blood-stage parasites, which are responsible for the malaria pathologies including fatal disease. In the 1800s, Joseph Caventou and Pierre Pelletier, two French scientists, characterized the active principle of the plant infusions as quinine, which became a reference malaria treatment for centuries. Treatments based on the quinoline compound mefloquine and the sesquiterpene lactone were developed years later post-World War II. The current FDA approved antimalarial drugs act in many different processes involved in Plasmodium development, most of them against parasites inside the host red blood cells, where they degrade vast amounts of hemoglobin. Phenotypic screening approaches have shown to be efficient to find potential candidates for fighting malaria.
