Preface

In the website of WHO, 14 diseases are reported to occur exclusively or specially in tropics. Most of them are infectious diseases affecting mainly poor populations and include leishmaniosis, dengue fever, malaria and Chagas disease. These diseases affect around 1 billion people and, according to WHO, 100% of developing countries are affected by at least five of these diseases. Accordingly, there is an urgent necessity for increasing the arsenal of drugs to combat neglected diseases in order to guarantee relief and well-being to many patients. The situation requires powerful research and improvement of politics to support investigation in this area of knowledge. There is a great volume of scientific work dealing with biology, immunology and genetics of parasites which cause these diseases. Taking in account the present situation, the role of Organic Chemistry in the pharmaceutical industry continues to be one of the main propellers for the discovery of new drugs. Medicinal organic chemists have contributed by seeking new bioactive compounds. Nowadays, there is a considerable global effort to evoke awareness to this problem and overcome the persisting inequality in the focus of drug discovery. Therefore, this eBook gathers important scientific research performed by scientists worldwide showing the state of the art of Organic Medicinal Chemistry dedicated to the synthesis of compounds that are potentially bioactive against the causative agents of neglected diseases. The eBook intends to be a valuable source of information to researchers in the area of Medicinal Chemistry, Organic Synthesis, as well as to undergraduate and graduate students interested in this subject.

The eBook is composed of eight chapters, each of which is dedicated to one type of neglected disease. Essentially, the authors compiled important work concerning the synthesis and biological evaluation, according to their targets, of lead compounds in the process of developing new pharmaceuticals.