Healing touch
A new class of anti-malarial drug that stops the parasite from replicating in infected blood cells has succeeded in curing the disease in monkeys. Henry Vial and colleagues from the France-based Montpellier University II have developed the drug known as G25. The drug prevents choline, a chemical raw material of cell membranes, from being transported into the parasite. Without choline, the parasite cannot form new vital internal cellular structures and outer cell envelopes, therefore, it cannot replicate (www.nature.com, February 19, 2002).