Chemicals which had been sitting on a shelf at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) for more than 80 years could hold the key to finding a cure for the killer disease malaria.
In 2001 scientists at the NIMR in The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, stumbled across the drugs, which had been made at the institute in the 1920s by a chemist looking to combat another fatal disease.
After two years of experiments, their findings are now being taken so seriously that they were reported last November in the prestigious scientific magazine the Journal of Biological Chemistry. If their theories come to fruition, experts at the NIMR anticipate a cure for malaria could be available as early as 2013.
Tags: Health, Malaria
