by Planer JD, Hulverson MA, Arif JA, Ranade RM, Don R, Buckner FS. PLOS NTDs 2014, doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0002977.
Summary: To discover better treatments for Chagas disease, a collection of existing drugs was screened for growth inhibitory activity on Trypanosoma cruzi. Several dozen orally administered drugs were discovered, but when used by themselves they were not strong enough to cure the infection in an animal model. A set of 24 of these drugs were tested in every twoway combination and identified eight synergistic partners. At least two of these combinations were able to substantially lower parasite levels in the mouse model of Trypanosoma cruzi infection. Thus, finding pairs of FDA approved drugs that can be used in combination may be a pragmatic and effective strategy for designing new therapies for Chagas disease.
