Development of nanocarriers for innovative antimalarial combination strategies

Abstract Malaria is a serious infectious parasitic disease that is also one of the world’s deadliest. It has been treatable for centuries, but due to drug resistance, it continues to exert an enormous toll on human lives and economies. Although the current combination of powerful antimalarial drugs has been pivotal to reducing mortality, modern pharmacological technologies can further reduce the risk of resistance from the malaria parasite before total eradication is achieved. In this chapter, we describe various nanobiotechnology systems that have been developed for the delivery of pharmaceuticals for the treatment of diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDS, and leishmaniasis, but have only been cursorily investigated for malaria. We discuss them under two broad technology platforms: encapsulation and polymer conjugation.