Artemisia annua is the only known plant source of potent antimalarial artemisinins, and its chemotypes are classified as low- and high-artemisinin producing (LAP and HAP). However, the different mechanisms of artemisinin ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 6, 2024
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7
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) have developed a method to synthesize the highly potent antimalarial drug artemisinin, which could lead to a more cost-effective treatment ...
Biochemistry
May 2, 2023
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31
Synthetic biology promises far reaching solutions to human concerns, from averting climate catastrophes to medical breakthroughs. But are ethics keeping pace with emerging technology? The case study of engineered Artemisinin, ...
Biotechnology
Jun 6, 2022
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43
Mosquitoes won't fly anywhere near the sweet wormwood herb (Artemisia annua), so it makes perfect sense that a chemical compound produced by the plant has become the first line of treatment against malaria.
Plants & Animals
Apr 9, 2019
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9
Artemisinin is a potent antimalarial compound produced naturally by the Chinese shrub Artemisia annua, commonly known as sweet wormwood. Currently,however, the low amount of artemisinin produced in the leaves of this plant ...
Biotechnology
Apr 24, 2018
1
280
Compared to smallpox or typhoid, malaria is proving one of the most challenging human diseases to eradicate - and so remains a real and constant danger to nearly half the world's population. Twenty years ago, two million ...
Biochemistry
Sep 7, 2017
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3
As seen on crime shows, investigators use a combination of luminol and other substances to light up bloodstains at crime scenes. But now, researchers report in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry that combining luminol with ...
Analytical Chemistry
May 31, 2017
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3
Scientists have discovered a gene that allows to double the production of artemisinin in the Artemisia annua plant.The artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is the standard treatment for malaria worldwide, endorsed ...
Biotechnology
Mar 27, 2017
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11
Researchers at Cardiff University have devised a new way of creating a drug commonly used as the first line of defence against malaria around the world.
Materials Science
Mar 15, 2017
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9
In 2015, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded in part for the discovery of artemisinin, a plant-derived compound that's proven to be a lifesaver in treating malaria. Yet many people who need the drug are ...
Biotechnology
Oct 20, 2016
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359
Artemisinin ( /ɑrtɨˈmɪsɨnɨn/), also known as Qinghaosu (Chinese: 青蒿素) , and its derivatives are a group of drugs that possess the most rapid action of all current drugs against falciparum malaria. Treatments containing an artemisinin derivative (artemisinin-combination therapies, ACTs) are now standard treatment worldwide for falciparum malaria. The starting compound artemisinin is isolated from the plant Artemisia annua, a herb described in Chinese traditional medicine.
Chemically, artemisinin is a sesquiterpene lactone containing an unusual peroxide bridge. It is believed that this peroxide is responsible for the drug's mechanism of action. No other natural compound with such a peroxide bridge is known.
Use of the drug by itself as a monotherapy is explicitly discouraged by the World Health Organization as there have been signs that malarial parasites are developing resistance to the drug. Therapies that combine artemisinin with some other anti-malarial drug are the preferred treatment for malaria and are both effective and well tolerated in patients. The drug is also increasingly being used in vivax malaria as well as being a topic of research in cancer treatment.
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