Old RA drug found effective for parasite that is major cause of death worldwide

Research by a collaborative group of scientists from UC San Diego School of Medicine, UC San Francisco and Wake Forest School of Medicine has led to identification of an existing drug that is effective against Entamoeba histolytica. This parasite causes amebic dysentery and liver abscesses and results in the death of more than 70,000 people worldwide each year.

Using a high-throughput screen for drugs developed by the research team, they discovered that auranofin – a drug developed by SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) and marketed under the Ridaura brand name, which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration 25 years ago for rheumatoid arthritis - is very effective in targeting an enzyme that protects amebae from oxygen attack (thus enhancing sensitivity of the amebae to reactive oxygen-mediated killing).

The results of the work, led by Sharon Reed, professor in the UCSD Departments of Pathology and Medicine and James McKerrow, professor of Pathology in the UCSF Sandler Center for Drug Discovery, were published in the May 20, 2012, issue of Nature Medicine.