Anti-malarial agents/drugs

Hemolytic anemia can be caused by eating foods (such as fava beans) or taking drugs (such as anti-malarial agents or acetaminophen) that have oxidizing properties. 

Chong, C.R., et al. A clinical drug library screen identifies astemizole as an anti-malarial agent. Nat. Chem. Biol. 2006, 2, 415 16. 

The structures of two antiarrhythmic agents, quinidine, a natural product, and disopyramide (Searle Roussel, 1972) are shown in Figure 4.2. Quinidine was first isolated from cinchona bark but is now made by the epimerization of quinine at the carbon bearing the hydroxyl group. Its effects on arrhythmias were first noted more than 200 years ago when the drug was being used as an anti-malarial agent. 

Adverse Effects. Because these drugs are fairly new, the potential for side effects remains to be determined fully. Studies on animals suggested that these drugs may be neurotoxic, but this effect has not been proven conclusively in humans.46 Future research should help determine the relative risks and benefits of these agents, as well as how artemisinin derivatives can complement other drugs in the anti-malarial armamentarium. 

Although we can identify drug classes in which major advances were made in the past, we do recognize that sometimes solutions are not permanently achieved. The need for new drugs may be revived in areas in which we thought satisfactory ones had been provided. For example, the development or identification of resistant or new infectious organisms can create needs for new antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents. Anti-malarial research was re-intensified for such reasons after about 20 years of dormancy. 

Nonclassical 2,4-diaminoquinazoline analogues of folic acid have been of interest as potential chemotherapeutic agents since the early 1970s. Some possess interesting levels of antibacterial activity and remarkable antimalarial effects. The drug trimetrexate (693) displays potent anti-malarial, antibacterial, and antitumor activities, and has been through clinical trials as an anticancer... 

In this Volume, the policy of publishing reviews written by specialists concerned with the development and study of new drugs has been continued. We have included chapters covering the fields of pesticides, antibiotics, antivirals antifertility agents, and anti-malarial compounds. In addition, the biosynthesis, chemical synthesis and metabolism of the prostaglandins have been reviewed. The changes made in Volume 7 of the series have permitted reviews to appear in print sooner than has been achieved in the past. 

Natural products have been used as therapeutic agents or medicinal products for millennia in one form or another and a huge number of these, especially prior to the last 50 years, are derived from plants [2]. Today, natural products derived from plant sources continue to play a vital role in the treatment of diseases. There are many examples where the active compound in plant-derived traditional medicines has been used as a pharmaceutical agent. A particularly important example is the discoveiy and development of anti-malarial drugs such as quinine and artemisinin (Fig. 1.3). Quinine was isolated as early as 1820 and was used extensively until the... 

Quinidine is used as an antiarrhythmic agent (class I A), and it is also used rarely as an anti-malarial drug. 

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