Drug Discovery in Preclinical Research (Track)

A BIOGUIDED SEARCH OF ANTIPARASITE COMPOUNDS

Fernando Echeverri, Sara Robledo, Winston Quiñones, I.D. Velez, Gustavo Escobar, Fernando Torres, Rosendo Archbold and Juan F. Gil

Department of Chemistry, University of Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia

Abstract

Natural products isolated from plants, microorganism, insects, and marine organisms have been an important source of new drugs. However, few medicines were developed to well known neglected diseases (Leishmaniasis, Trypanosomiasis, Schistosomiasis, Dengue, etc.) which are very common in biodiverse countries.

In the search of new alternatives against this type of diseases, we carried out an extensive prospection from Colombian flora based on several chemistry and biological strategies, including ethnomedicine, chemical transformations, structure-activity relationships, biochemical correlations and coevolution insect-protozoal, among others. So far we have four molecules in the last stage of animal assays against Leishmaniasis, Malaria and Trypanosomiasis.

Keywords: Natural products, neglected diseases, strategies, structure, bioassays.