Authors

J Baum¹;  ¹ UNSW, Australia

Discussion

Malaria was estimated to cause more than 240 million cases worldwide in 2020. This translated into 640,000 deaths, primarily among children under the age of 5, with 80% of these deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. The WHO has set itself the goal of a 90% reduction of malaria incidence and mortality by the end of this decade. Whilst RTS,S/AS01, the malaria vaccine developed by GSK and recommended by WHO, does provide partial protection, as a singular tool it won’t be enough alone. Bending the curve to get malaria rates back on a path towards control and eventual eradication will require new innovations, in particular new strategies in diagnostics, treatments and a long-lived efficacious vaccine. In this talk Professor Jake Baum will discuss one central project from his lab that has sought to find drugs that target the parasite in the mosquito - transmission blocking drugs. From developing a screen using high throughput imaging to medicinal chemistry of compounds found and identification of their targets, this talk will trace the drug discovery journey to its most recent end-point, presenting some potentially very new ways of thinking about antimalarial drug design, development and delivery.