Lipid kinase enters the malaria stage

A Novartis AG-University of California, San Diego-led consortium has identified a new class of antimalarials that, unlike marketed drugs, eliminates Plasmodium at all stages of its infection cycle.¹ The pharma is developing derivatives of the lead inhibitor with improved drug-like properties.

Plasmodium's life cycle consists of several distinct stages. Mosquito-injected sporozoites rapidly populate liver cells, in which they either proliferate and produce merozoites that emerge in the bloodstream or enter a dormant phase as hypnozoites in the liver...