Why Malaria?

I chose malaria as this is one of the serious problems in India and world as a whole. Now, since this disease is mostly found in underdeveloped or developing world. So, the major drug developing companies are not much interested in developing drugs for this disease as this disease is not profitable to them. Hence, this disease is still lurking in our country. So, I’m interested in working on this disease.

However for this disease several drugs have been developed but they all have several side effects. So, my main interest is to work on the targeted drug therapy for malaria. Such that the side effects of the drugs could be reduced. This can be done by attaching the pro drug to an antibody, liposome, etc. which are specific to the infected cell and hence bind specifically to that cell. This can help in reducing the side effects of the drug while simultaneously increasing its effectiveness. This will also help in preventing the development of resistance against drug as the residual drug won’t be available to the plasmodium in the active form. Some of the specific receptor present on the surface of erythrocyte infected by plasmodium is chondroitin sulfate A, Plasmodium falciparum Erythrocyte Membrane Protein 1 (PfEMP1), etc. These receptors can be used as the target sites to which the delivery vehicle like liposome can bind and hence can release the drug only in the vicinity of the infected cell.

This will reduce the amount of drug required for each treatment and will also be helpful in preventing the side effects of drugs.

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