It takes more than half a million lives each year, according to the World Health Organization. It impacts the fate of most third world countries, with highest concentrations in Africa. It is named malaria, and Portland State professor of chemistry David Peyton and his team are setting out to change its destructive course.
It takes more than half a million lives each year, according to the World Health Organization. It impacts the fate of most third world countries, with highest concentrations in Africa. It is named malaria, and Portland State professor of chemistry David Peyton and his team are setting out to change its destructive course.
“I, like so many people, have watched as nearly a million die each year, mostly children—with one child dying every 45 seconds. And it is everywhere,” Peyton said, emphasizing that malaria has historical roots “from ancient Rome to modern Iraq.”
Peyton and his team began working toward a potential solution to combat malaria in 2005. Under the banner of Portland pharmaceutical startup DesignMedix, Inc., Peyton’s work turns attention to the same medications that are supposed to cure the disease. These medications have proven to be successful, cutting the numbers of those affected nearly in half since the advent of antimalarial drugs. With time, however, the evolution of the four strains of malaria brought another threat: drug resistance.
Historically, the antimalarial drug Chloroquine was the classic go-to choice because of its cheap price and production, its oral use and its ability to combine with other treatment options. According to Peyton, Chloroquine “has done more to alleviate suffering than any other malarial drug we have ever had.” But with the continued rise of drug-resistant cases, Chloroquine’s reputation has tarnished. This is a problem across the board for malaria drugs, as cases show that even the newest drugs display signs of drug resistance.
Peyton said that another drawback to the effectiveness of Chloroquine is due to the drug’s misuse: “90 percent of the way the drug is used, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, should not be done as it is now. For instance, you wouldn’t use mono-therapy, or the use of just one drug. Nobody these days would.”
Studies have shown that the single-method treatment is more prone to the development of drug resistance. Because of this, Peyton and his team take a hybrid-drug approach to change the molecular structure of Choloroquine-resistant malaria strains. Peyton combines Reversal Drug Agents and Choloroquine, creating an entirely new molecule.
“It’s important to get the geometry right, but it’s a simple synthesis to make it,” Peyton said.
Lab tests over the years have shown this new compound is easy to construct. It’s effective in combatting strains in vitro as well as in mice, has good compatibility with other treatments and it’s flexible to fit the ever-changing framework of drug resistance.
It’s important, Peyton said, to address the “ongoing need for development of a pipeline of effective drugs until the eradication of the disease might become a reality.”
In addition to combating drug resistance, there are indications that the hybrid drug can counteract other negative side effects associated with certain mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder. Madeleine Mader, Peace Corps country director in Ghana from 1993–95, has firsthand experience in handling those kinds of adverse reactions.
“I assisted three different Peace Corps volunteers with medical evacuation after they had a severe adverse reaction to the antimalarial drugs,” Mader said. “Each of the three volunteers had failed to disclose prior mental illness, and thus the Peace Corps medical staff did not know that they would not be able to tolerate the drug. I think that if they had revealed this past medical history, Peace Corps would not have assigned them to serve in a malarial zone in Africa,” she added.
Peyton said that drug resistance is a growing tendency that will only continue unless the means to combat it are developed. His hybrid drug—reversed Chloroquine—has undergone a successful completion of a series of lab trials that show there is an increasing promise in the battle against malaria.
Now, the new drug is ready to enter into the next phase of trials, and for that to happen, support is needed in the form of funds and resources from various institutions and foundations. The development of antimalarial drugs is high-costing compared to the much lower cost of developing antibacterial drugs. “$5 million are needed for phase one,” Peyton said. “For an academic science professor, that’s a little breathtaking.”
“But if you don’t play,” Peyton added, “you’re definitely not going to win the game.”
