Many tools in the fight against malaria have reached the limit of their efficacy, says UF’s Rhoel Dinglasan. His team had been testing a compound derived from primaquine, known as NPC1161B, which has a better therapeutic profile than its parent compound. However, it can be toxic to people with certain genetic profiles that make up a high proportion of populations in some malaria endemic areas.
Dinglasan tried a different approach--repurposing antimalarial drugs to directly treat mosquito vectors. They laced sugar traps with a known antimalarial, which treated infected mosquitos by disrupting the malaria parasite’s reproductive process. Those mosquitos can no longer infect humans. “If we remove that humancentric lens and think more broadly about treating all mosquitoes, we could potentially get rid of these parasites,” he says.
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