The Open Access Malaria Box: A Drug Discovery Catalyst for Neglected Diseases

TLDR

Neglected disease drug discovery has struggled to identify novel chemotypes, despite phenotypic screening of *Plasmodium falciparum* producing nearly 30,000 submicromolar hits. The authors assembled the 400‑compound Malaria Box to make these hits more accessible and described its selection methodology and characteristics. They selected half the compounds for drug‑like properties and the other half as molecular probes. The Malaria Box is now available as a pharmacological test set for malaria and related parasite researchers, supporting open data and compound sharing.

Abstract

Historically, one of the key problems in neglected disease drug discovery has been identifying new and interesting chemotypes. Phenotypic screening of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum has yielded almost 30,000 submicromolar hits in recent years. To make this collection more accessible, a collection of 400 chemotypes has been assembled, termed the Malaria Box. Half of these compounds were selected based on their drug-like properties and the others as molecular probes. These can now be requested as a pharmacological test set by malaria biologists, but importantly by groups working on related parasites, as part of a program to make both data and compounds readily available. In this paper, the analysis and selection methodology and characteristics of the compounds are described.