Global phenotypic screening for antimalarials

Malaria, a devastating infectious disease caused by Plasmodium spp., leads to roughly 655,000 deaths per year, mostly of African children. To compound the problem, drug resistance has emerged to all classical antimalarials and may be emerging for artemisinin-based combination therapies. To address the need for new antimalarials with novel mechanisms, several groups carried out phenotypic screening campaigns to identify compounds inhibiting growth of the blood stages of Plasmodium falciparum. In this review, we describe the characterization of these compounds, explore currently ongoing strategies to develop lead molecules, and endorse the concept of a "malaria box" of publicly accessible active compounds.