German scientists synthesize anti-malaria drug from waste materials

Researchers in Germany have found a cheap and easy way to synthesize anti-malaria drug in large quantities from waste materials, said the Max Planck Society on Tuesday. Currently there are nearly one million people die worldwide each year due to lack of effective drugs, as sweet wormwood, from which artemisinin, the effective essence to fight malaria can be extracted, only grows in China, Vietnam and a few other countries. However, researchers in Germany have now developed a simple process for the synthesis of artemisinin in laboratory, using artemisinic acid, a substance contained in the by-product, or waste materials of the isolation of artemisinin from sweet wormwoods, as row materials of synthesizing artemisinin. "The production of the drug is therefore no longer dependent on obtaining the active ingredient from plants," said Peter Seeberger, director at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam and professor at Free University of Berlin. The artemisinic acid in the waste material boasts a volume 10 times greater than the active ingredient itself, said Seeberger, and they could be turned into artemisinin in four and a half minutes in a so-called continuous-flow reactor. Seeberger estimated that 800 of the reactors would be enough to cover the global requirement for artemisinin, and the whole innovative synthesis process could be ready for technical use in three to six months. Malaria is a disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes. In 2010, malaria caused an estimated 655,000 deaths, mostly among African children.