UK crop researchers have significantly increased the yields of anti-malaria remedy artemisinin, which could eventually benefit malaria sufferers worldwide.
The plant extract artemisinin comes from the wormwood plant Artemisia annua. It is said to offer the only effective alternative to resistance problems faced by current synthetic anti-malaria drugs worldwide.
The World Health Organisation has recommended artemisinin-based therapies in combination with other medicines, known as Artemisinin Combination Therapies or ACTs, to reduce the recurrence of malaria and to slow the development of resistance. More than 80 countries have now adopted ACTs as the front-line treatment.
However, inefficient artemisinin production and low yields in the usual growing areas in Africa and Asia have, so far, limited an effective roll-out of the treatment across the world. Plant breeders and crop scientists at The National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) in Cambridge have now significantly increased levels of artemisinin in the plant to the highest levels reported to date.
"Results from this year's harvested Artemisia trials indicate that we've increased the concentration of artemisinin in excess of 2.2% w/w dry material, almost three times the industry average of 0.8% w/w. These exceptionally good results have been matched by improvements in health and vigour of the plants," said NIAB researcher Steven Bentley.
The field trials are part of a UK-based study investigating the feasibility of growing Artemisia in the UK for production of artemisinin-based therapies.
The first set of project results were presented by Colin Hill, chairman of the Defra LINK Artemisia consortium, at the joint World Health Organisation (WHO) and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) Conference on artemisinin in Mumbai, India.
NIAB's success is part of an ongoing breeding programme that began in 2005 to develop new lines of Artemisia from original parent lines and commercial "varieties".
"Our breeding programme is now established and providing consistent and stable results. We believe that additional significant increases are still possible with development material in our plant breeding nursery," added Bentley.