University of Washington Health Sciences

In what is being called the first-ever test of open-source drug-discovery, researchers from around the world have successfully identified compounds to pursue in treating and preventing parasite-borne illnesses such as malaria as well as cancer...One-third of the labs reported their results in a paper published today in PLOS Pathogens, "Open source drug discovery with the Malaria Box compound collection for neglected diseases and beyond." The results have ignited more a dozen drug-development projects for a variety of diseases. "The trial was successful not only in identifying compounds to pursue for anti-malarials, but it also identified compounds to treat other parasites and cancer," said lead author Wesley Van Voorhis.

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