Treating Malaria Using Aminohydantoin Compounds

SLU ID 12-014 | Aminohydantoin Compounds as Antimalarial Agents

Background

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions around the equator throughout the world. In 2016, there were an estimated 216 million cases of malaria and 731,000 deaths worldwide. The mortality rates for severe and complicated malaria are upwards of 50 percent. Drug resistance is a growing problem for malaria treatment and is now common against almost all classes of antimalarial drugs. The high cost of the class of drugs for which malaria does not exhibit resistance limits their use, particularly in underdeveloped countries.

Overview

Researchers at Saint Louis University have developed aminohydantoin anti-malarial agents and methods for employing them. These agents target malarial aspartic proteases while at the same time having low activity against human beta-secretase (BACE).

Benefits

The potential benefits of this technology include:

• Increasing the number of malaria treatments

• Minimizing drug resistance to malaria treatments

• Minimizing the cost of treatments

• Increasing the accessibility of treatments

• Minimizing the dosage requirements for treatments

• Minimizing treatment duration

Applications

This technology has potential application for treating malarial infections.

Opportunity

Saint Louis University is seeking partners to further develop and commercialize this technology.

Patents

• U.S. patent 9,353,089