Ilya Raskin

Ilya Raskin is an indirect recipient of Gates Foundation funding. In 2005, Gates committed $100 million over five years to Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), a nonprofit foundation supporting the development of new, affordable anti-malarial drugs. With more than $340,000 per year, the MMV is funding the U.S./South Africa Antimalarial Drug Consortium led by Raskin.

Historically, drugs derived from botanical sources have been used to treat malaria and other diseases. This includes pharmaceutical agents such as quinine, one of the most effective and widely used anti-malarial drugs.

According to the World Health Organization, one million people die of malaria each year, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. With increasing drug resistance, new treatments for malaria are now needed.

A massive anti-malarial screening program for a botanical alternative to quinine was conducted by Merck and Company during World War II. During the war, German submarine activity made it difficult to import quinine from South America, so Merck went looking for other botanical sources.

Today, due to the emerging drug resistance, the search for an alternative to quinine has again become a priority. 

Recently unearthed data from Merck’s wartime program provide a treasure trove of leads for discovering novel anti-malarial drugs from plants, which can be fully developed using sophisticated modern screening methods and technologies. Raskin and his colleagues from North Carolina State University and the University of Cape Town can now pick up where Merck left off.