Malaria remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide with an estimated 2 million people dying from this disease every year. The majority are children under 5 living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drug resistance to the commonly available drugs is widespread, and with a safe and effective vaccine still many years away, new chemotherapeutic agents are required to ensure that cheap and effective treatment can be maintained. Aminopeptidases are involved in the catabolism of proteins in all organisms studied to date. In the apicomplexan parasite of the genus Plasmodium the cause of malaria, we have shown that it is possible to selectively target these enzymes such that we can kill the parasite both in the laboratory and in a mouse model. We have generated recombinant proteins from two of these enzymes that are suitable for adaptation to high throughput screening to identify new and novel compounds that can target these enzymes. ? ? ?
