Authors

P Mäser¹;  ¹ Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland

Discussion

The incidence of human African trypanosomiasis being at a historic low, the elimination of the disease as a public health problem may finally be tangible - but only with a new, safe and uncomplicated treatment option. There is no shortage of potential drug targets. Trypanosoma brucei possesses numerous biochemical peculiarities that are essential to the parasite but absent in mammalian cells, i.e. trypanothione metabolism, the kinetoplast, the glycosomes and RNA editing. However, target-based approaches have so far not yielded novel drug candidates. The molecules that progressed to the clinical phases of development (pafuramidine, fexinidazole and the benzoxaborole SCYX-7158) had been discovered in cell-based screens. I shall compare the different approaches and present new strategies towards the next generation of drugs for human African trypanosomiasis.