Plasmodium falciparum is one of the two protozoan parasites responsible for most of the world's cases of human malaria (the other being P. vivax). Hay et al. (2010) estimated that in 2010 there were around 450 million clinical cases of P. falciparum malaria in the world. Based on where they live, an estimated 2.5 billion people were at possible risk of infection with P. falciparum as of 2005. Malaria remains one of the most important infectious disease problems in the world (2)The treatment and control of malaria are greatly limited by the increasing resistance of malaria parasites, particularlyPlasmodium falciparum, to available drugs (7). New antimalarial agents, ideally directed against new targets, are therefore an urgent priority (5). Among the potential targets for drugs directed against P. falciparum are proteases that hydrolyze hemoglobin to provide amino acids for parasite protein synthesis. Multiple proteases appear to participate in this process (3, 8), including the cysteine proteases falcipain-2 (15) and falcipain-3 (17). Inhibitors of these cysteine proteases block the hydrolysis of hemoglobin and thereby halt the development of cultured P. falciparum parasites (10, 13). Efforts are therefore under way to discover inhibitors of falcipain-2/-3 with acceptable properties for new antimalarial drugs. 

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