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Anti-trypanosomatid drug discovery: an ongoing challenge and a continuing need

2017; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 15; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nrmicro.2016.193

1740-1534

Mark C. Field, David Horn, Alan H. Fairlamb, Michael A. J. Ferguson, David W. Gray, Kevin D. Read, Manu De Rycker, Leah S. Torrie, Paul G. Wyatt, Susan Wyllie, Ian H. Gilbert,

Biochemical and Molecular Research

Trypanosomatid parasites can cause life-threatening diseases, such as human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. In this Review, Gilbert and colleagues discuss the drug discovery landscape and describe some of the challenges that are involved in the development of new drugs to treat these diseases. The WHO recognizes human African trypanosomiasis, Chagas disease and the leishmaniases as neglected tropical diseases. These diseases are caused by parasitic trypanosomatids and range in severity from mild and self-curing to near invariably fatal. Public health advances have substantially decreased the effect of these diseases in recent decades but alone will not eliminate them. In this Review, we discuss why new drugs against trypanosomatids are required, approaches that are under investigation to develop new drugs and why the drug discovery pipeline remains essentially unfilled. In addition, we consider the important challenges to drug discovery strategies and the new technologies that can address them. The combination of new drugs, new technologies and public health initiatives is essential for the management, and hopefully eventual elimination, of trypanosomatid diseases from the human population.