Current progress on genomics of schistosomiasis for drug discovery and diagnostics

: For number of decades, Scistosomiasis has remained the public health and economic burden in a number of countries directly impacting over 200 million people. Past 15 years have seen tremendous progress in development of high-throughput methods for targets or compounds selection that are vital to early stage schistosome drug discovery research. Genome wide approaches to analyze gene expression at the transcriptional and other 'omic level has helped immensely for gaining insight into the pathways and mechanisms involved in the schistosomiasis and it is expected to revolutionize the drug discovery as well as diagnostics. This review discusses most recent progress of pharmacology and genomics of schistosomiasis with focus on drug discovery and diagnostic tools. It also provides chemical structural insights of promising targets along with available in vitro and/or in vivo data. Although, significant research has been done to identify new molecules for the treatment and new methods for diagnosis, the necessity of new options for the sustainable control of schistosomiasis remains a great challenge.