An international team of researchers, including those at Penn State, have made a groundbreaking discovery in the fight against malaria.
The team found that a cancer drug currently in clinical trials, known as sapanisertib, has the potential to protect, cure, and block the transmission of malaria.
This is especially significant as disruptions to malaria prevention and treatment due to the COVID-19 pandemic have led to an increase in malaria cases and deaths worldwide, particularly affecting children under five, pregnant women, and HIV patients.
The team, led by researchers at the University of Cape Town, published their results in the journal Science Translational Medicine. In their study, they explored the potential of using sapanisertib to treat malaria and found that it can kill the malaria parasite at various stages during its life cycle within the human host. This includes when the parasite is in the liver, where it first grows and multiplies; when it is within the host’s red blood cells, where clinical symptoms are observed; and when it divides sexually within the host red blood cells to produce transmissible forms of the parasite. These transmissible forms are typically taken up by the female Anopheles mosquito during a blood meal and passed on to infect another person, so killing the parasite can also prevent subsequent infections.
The researchers also established the mechanism by which sapanisertib kills the human malaria parasite, finding that it inhibits multiple proteins called kinases in the parasite. The drug’s multistage activity and its antimalarial efficacy, along with its potent inhibition of multiple protein targets, including at least two that have previously been shown to be vulnerable to chemotherapeutic intervention, make it a promising candidate for further research into its potential for repurposing as a treatment for malaria.
The team took an approach known as drug repurposing, which aims to find new uses for an existing drug that has already been approved for use in one disease area and apply it to another disease. This approach can be useful in avoiding the challenges and expenses of discovering and developing a new medicine from scratch, which often has a low success rate in terms of the number of drugs that make it to the market. In particular, this approach is beneficial in neglected and tropical diseases such as malaria, where resources are strained and financial returns are low.
Sapanisertib has already shown promise as a treatment for various types of cancer, including breast cancer, endometrial cancer, glioblastoma, renal cell carcinoma, and thyroid cancer.
The team’s next steps will involve evaluating the safety and effectiveness of sapanisertib in preclinical models of malaria and in early stage clinical trials