Drug Cures Mice of Malaria, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - German scientists have discovered a possible new drug for malaria, an 
anti-biotic that seemed to cure mice by attacking the mosquito-borne disease in a different manner 
than today's treatments.
        There's no way to know yet if the antibiotic, fosmidomycin, will help people with malaria.
        The scientists discovered an enzyme present in malaria that appears crucial to how the 
parasite synthesizes hormones and other substances.
        The antibiotic fosmidomycin happens to shut down the enzyme, called DOXP 
reductoisomerase, in bacteria. So lead researcher Hassan Jomaa of Justus-Liebig University in 
Giessen, Germany, and his colleagues tested whether it also would target the enzyme in the 
malaria parasite.
        They fed fosmidomycin to mice with malaria and cured the rodents.
        Fosmidomycin was developed by a Japanese company in the late 1970s and testing showed it 
was safe for people, Jomaa said. But it has never been sold because it never before seemed to offer 
a benefit over other antibiotics, he said.
        We want to test fosmidomycin [against malaria] in humans as soon as possible, he said in 
an e-mail interview.
        The downside: Fosmidomycin dissipates in the body very quickly so, if it does prove useful 
to people, repeated doses throughout the day would be needed.