{"id":264,"date":"2018-05-17T17:45:02","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T17:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/?page_id=264"},"modified":"2018-05-17T19:58:00","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T19:58:00","slug":"developing-new-treatments-for-malaria","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/spring-2018\/developing-new-treatments-for-malaria\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing New Treatments for Malaria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Almost half of the people in the world \u2014 especially those living in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America \u2014 currently risk contracting malaria. In 2016, the Medicines for Malaria Venture estimated that 216 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, leading to 445,000 deaths.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Malaria spreads to humans who are bitten by mosquitoes infected with <em>Plasmodium<\/em> \u2013 a single-cell parasite. While a number of antimalarial medications are available, the appearance of drug-resistant strains of <em>Plasmodium<\/em> has sparked renewed urgency in the search for novel antimalarial agents. David Rotella, Sokol Professor of Chemistry, and John Siekierka, Sokol Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and director of the University\u2019s Margaret and Herman Sokol Institute for Pharmaceutical Life Sciences, are collaborating with researchers at Rutgers University on a new potential drug target in <em>Plasmodium<\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nIt may be possible to combine this with other antimalarial drugs to treat infection and reduce or very hopefully prevent resistance from developing.<\/p>\n<footer><cite>David Rotella<\/cite><\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\">Rotella, Siekierka and the Rutgers researchers are sharing a $1.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health\u2019s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIH NIAID), with Montclair State receiving approximately $770,000 over the three-year term of the grant.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"responsive-image-holder wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mlt-responsive-image\" data-original-image=\"\/forward-thinking\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2018\/05\/ThinkstockPhotos-137375488.jpg\" src=\"\/responsive-media\/cache\/forward-thinking\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2018\/05\/ThinkstockPhotos-137375488.jpg.0.1x.generic.jpg\" alt=\"Close-up of mosquito.\"\/><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWe\u2019re investigating inhibitors of a protein kinase found in <em>Plasmodium<\/em> that plays multiple roles in its life cycle,\u201d says Rotella. \u201cThe most important point of this research is to attempt to confirm if this enzyme can inhibit the parasitic life cycle of <em>Plasmodium<\/em> at more than one point. If we can demonstrate that, it may be possible to combine this with other antimalarial drugs to treat infection and reduce or very hopefully prevent resistance from developing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">According to Rotella, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students are working in his and Siekierka\u2019s labs on the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThis research,\u201d notes Rotella, \u201cis being done as part of the Sokol Institute\u2019s mission to carry out academic drug discovery and help train new scientists to work in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost half of the people in the world \u2014 especially those living in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America \u2014 currently risk contracting malaria. In 2016, the Medicines for Malaria Venture estimated that 216 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, leading to 445,000 deaths. Malaria spreads to humans who are bitten by mosquitoes infected with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11,"parent":247,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-264","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/264\/revisions\/311"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/forward-thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}