Malaria is a life-threatening tropical disease that is increasingly becoming
drug-resistant. In 2002 Wolfgang Schiek and Thomas Zich, both working for DSM
Fine Chemicals in Linz (Austria), launched a new project to combat malaria in
Burkina Faso in Africa with the help of
Professor Heiner Schirmer of the Heidelberg University Biochemistry Center
(PDF: 23 Kb). After carrying out a series of studies and tests involving
children and adults and giving a presentation of the results at an
epidemiological congress in Heidelberg in 2004, DSM developed a new variant of
methylene blue, a low-cost pharmaceutical that can be used to combat malaria.
The program is still continuing to find a formulation of methylene blue that
has a better taste and is thus suitable for treating children.
