Antimalarial Activity of 2,6-Dibenzylidenecyclohexanone Derivatives.

Abstract Malaria remains one of the deadliest diseases on the planet, infecting an estimated 229 million individuals in 2019 with more than 400,000 associated deaths, primarily in young children and pregnant women. 1 Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasite infection of the liver and blood, with P. falciparum accounting for the vast majority of deaths. 2 The complexity of the Plasmodium life cycle3 coupled with mounting resistance to current treatments4 underscores the need for new treatment options. As a part of this discovery effort, we recently identified a number of active compounds in a high-throughput screen designed to identify molecules that arrest the growth of P. falciparum in co-culture with human erythrocytes. 5 One compound displaying notable activity was compound 1, a 2,6-dibenzylidenecyclohexanone shown in.Fig 1