E-Mail Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis have designed a drug-like compound which effectively blocks a critical step in the malaria parasite life cycle and are working to develop this compound into a potential first of its kind malaria treatment. While drugs and mosquito control have reduced levels of malaria over recent decades, the parasite still kills over 400,000 people every year, infecting many more. Worryingly, it has now developed resistance to many existing antimalarial drugs, meaning new treatments that work in different ways are urgently needed. In their research, published in PNAS, the scientists developed a set of compounds designed to stop the parasite being able to burst out of red blood cells, a process vital to its replication and life cycle. They found one compound in particular was highly effective in human cell tests.