Natural Products as Source of Therapeutics against Parasitic Diseases

Abstract

An end to suffering: Parasitic infections with protozoa and worms cause unimaginable misery, in particular in the tropics. Fortunately, natural products, such as the antimalarial artemisinin (1) and the anthelmintic avermectin (2) were discovered and developed into therapeutics. These major achievements now culminated in the 2015 Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Keywords: Nobel Prize; antiparasitics; artemisinin; avermectin; malaria; natural products.