In a new study, researchers found a strategy that could save years of drug discovery research and millions of dollars in drug development by repurposing existing treatments designed for other diseases such as cancer.
They found that targeting enzymes from the human host, rather than from the pathogen itself, could offer effective treatment for a range of infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
The research was conducted by a team at RMIT University and elsewhere.
In the study, the team demonstrated that the parasites that cause malaria are heavily dependent on enzymes in red blood cells where the parasites hide and proliferate.
It also showed that drugs developed for cancer, and which inactivate these human enzymes, known as protein kinases, are highly effective in killing the parasite and represent an alternative to drugs that target the parasite itself.
As well as enabling the repurposing of drugs, the approach is likely to reduce the emergence of drug resistance, as the pathogen cannot escape by simply mutating the target of the drug, as is the case for most currently available antimalarials.
The team says drug resistance is one of the biggest challenges in modern healthcare, not only in the case of malaria but with most infectious agents, including a large number of highly pathogenic bacterial species.
By targeting the host and not the pathogen itself, scientists remove the possibility for the pathogen to rapidly become resistant by mutating the target of the drug, as the target is made by the human host, not the pathogen.
The team will examine potential COVID-19 treatments using this approach.
One author of the study is Professor Christian Doerig.
The study is published in Nature Communications.
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