Preface

As teachers of parasite biology, we are becoming increasingly aware of the lack of detailed information and experimental approaches about drugs and drug resistance in many medical schools and undergraduate courses. Therefore, this book provides much-needed detail about parasite biology, antimalarial drugs and their mechanism of action, and the dynamic situation of evolving drug resistance of parasites, which has become a pressing issue.

This book addresses the perceived needs of both medical school and undergraduate curricula by synthesizing key concepts in the rapidly advancing and dynamic field of parasite biology and drug resistance. The choice of what is most important is based on what is most clearly established by experimentation, what our students find puzzling, and what explains the efficiency of drugs to clear parasites without the risk of them gaining resistance to antimalarials. In vitro and animal models are used to study the mechanism of action of existing and novel drugs. These studies hold immense relevance in the wake of antimalaria drug resistance to develop mechanisms to stop the evolution and spread of resistance. Mouse models grafted with human immune systems (HIS) or reconstituted with human blood cells (human RBCs) are crucial to deciphering the mechanisms responsible for antimalarial drug resistance. If resistance to artesunate and artemisinin continues to evolve at a rapid rate, along with co-resistance to quinine and other antimalarials, we will be left with no satisfactory option for treating severe malaria and a compromised choice of treatments for uncomplicated malaria.

This book provides insight into the plasmodium species, the role of cytokines in activating immune response during malaria infection, the importance of antimalarials as a therapeutic option, issues of drug resistance and co-resistance, and validation of evolved resistance in humanized mouse models. It is a timely addition to the existing literature on malaria parasite biology and a useful resource for those working in the field of parasite biology, drugs, drug resistance of infectious diseases in general, and human malaria parasites in particular and beyond.

> **Rajeev K. Tyagi, Ph.D.**  Division of Cell Biology and Immunology, Biomedical Parasitology and Nano-immunology Lab, CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh, India

Section 1
