Macromolecular crystallography shines a light on a new way to target the malaria parasite
(PHYSorg.com Chemistry)

The search for new treatments to combat malaria has been hampered by the lack of validated targets on the parasite that causes the disease. In work recently published in PNAS, a team from the Drug Discovery Unit at the University of Dundee present a new compound that is a selective inhibitor of the lysyl-tRNA synthetase enzyme in the parasites that cause malaria and cryptosporidiosis. Their work validates lysyl-tRNA synthetase as a drug target in these organisms and offers a strong lead for future drug discovery.