Peptide-Enabled Nanoplatforms for Malaria and Leishmaniasis: From Intracellular Targeting to Translational Diagnostic...

Malaria and leishmaniasis continue to impose a substantial health burden, while current therapeutic and diagnostic strategies remain limited by toxicity, prolonged regimens, drug resistance, and restricted field applicability. This review examines recent advances in peptide-enabled nanoplatforms for both diseases, with emphasis on intracellular targeting, drug delivery, and diagnostic innovation. Antimicrobial peptides, cell-penetrating peptides, peptoids, mimotopes, and peptide-functionalized nanocarriers have been explored to improve parasite targeting, intracellular delivery, pharmacokinetics, and antiparasitic efficacy. In parallel, peptide- and aptamer-based nanosensors have expanded the detection of clinically relevant biomarkers, including HRP2, pLDH, GP63, KMP-11, and kDNA, highlighting their potential for sensitive and modular diagnostics. Despite these advances, translation remains constrained by limited in vivo validation, insufficient pharmacokinetic standardization, incomplete toxicity profiling, poor batch reproducibility, protein corona-associated variability, and scarce validation under field-relevant conditions. Peptide-enabled nanoplatforms are therefore most likely to succeed when aligned with stage-specific parasite biology, realistic host cell-targeting requirements, and scalable implementation pathways in endemic settings.