Clipping of news on Brazilian Culture, Law and Citizenship
19/01/2012
This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.
Medicine at reasonable prices
The most effective anti-malarial drug, artemisinin, may first be produced at low cost.
This means that you may be able to offer medications at reasonable prices for all 225 million patients suffering from malaria worldwide.
German researchers have developed a very simple process, with a single step for the synthesis of artemisinin, the active ingredient that until now could only be obtained from plants.
Artemisinin
The discovery of artemisinin is a true epic, worthy of a screenplay, and was due to the denial of a Chinese scientist, who found the recipe in a book of medicinal plants with more than 1.600 years old.
To date, artemisinin is the most effective drug against malaria, and continues to be extracted from the plant Artemisia annua, or qinghaosu.
Now the story has another chapter, with the aid of oxygen and light.
Biotechnology
Underscoring the importance of medicinal plant, Peter Seeberger and François Lévesque left a byproduct of the current process of extraction of artemisinin from its original plan.
The advantage is that this by-product - artemisinin acid - can be produced biotechnologically using yeast.
Thereafter, in a single step, scientists produce the active drug against malaria.
There were already other techniques to do this, but many steps involving many inputs and the final product was more expensive than natural artemisinin.
Photochemistry
The researchers used the photochemistry - chemical reactions induced by light - to activate a highly reactive chemical group artemisinin acid, formed by oxygen atoms - an endoperoxide.
For a photochemical reaction occurs in all material on a large scale, the researchers constructed an apparatus in which light is in the center of a tube, through which flows the mixture to react.
Thus, the light hits the material that is flowing around it, allowing the production of synthetic artemisinin on an industrial scale.
According to scientists, the compost produced can be used not only against malaria, but also against other infections and even cancer of the breast.
The research was funded by the Clinton Foundation.
Source: Journal of Health
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This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.