A little-used drug and one of its derivatives, both known to destroy an essential enzyme in some algae, bacteria, and plants, can cure mice of malaria.

Jomaa, H., J. Wiesner, et al. 1999. Inhibitors of the nonmevalonate pathway of isoprenoid biosynthesis as antimalarial drugs. Science 285(Sept. 3):1573.

Arigoni, D., et al. 1997. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 94:10600.

Disch, A., et al. 1998. Biochemistry Journal 333:381.

Ridley, R.G. 1999. Planting the seeds of new antimalarial drugs. Science 285(Sept. 3):1502.

Takahashi, S., et al. 1998. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95:9879.

Information about the preliminary sequence data for P. falciparum chromosome 14 can be found at the Institute for Genomic Research’s Web site at http://www.tigr.org.

Stephen I. Hoffman
Naval Medical Research Institute
123000 Washington Avenue
Rockville, MD 20852

Hassan Jomaa
Justus-Liebig-University
Institute of Biochemistry
Academic Hospital Centre
Friedrichstrasse 24
D-35392 Giessen
Germany

Robert G. Ridley
World Health Organization
Drug Discovery Research
New Medicines for Malaria Venture
Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases
1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland

Jochen Wiesner
Justus-Liebig-University
Institute of Biochemistry
Academic Hospital Centre
Friedrichstrasse 24
D-35392 Giessen
Germany

From Science News, Vol. 156, No. 10, September 4, 1999, p. 148. Copyright © 1999, Science Service.