Medicinal Chemistry of New Compounds to Treat Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB), a 19th century disease, is still present in the beginning of the Third Millennium. It has been considered pandemic, since around two billion people are infected with M. tuberculosis. Multi-drug resistant TB has been the biggest challenge for chemotherapy. In order to face this severe health problem, many institutions, private and public ones, have been investing in the search for new and better drug candidates. The pipeline of potential anti-TB drugs presents new molecules and formulations that have been submitted to pre-clinical and clinical assays. Medicinal Chemistry has an important role towards the objective of finding new leads through classic and modern processes. This paper reviews some aspects of this search, emphasizing the features of the main compounds under investigation and those that are in preliminary and final clinical trials and includes the contribution of our laboratory (LAPEN) in the area of designing new anti-TB drug candidates.