Editorial: Drug Discovery for Leishmaniasis and Chagas Disease - Compound Design and Therapeutic Strategies

Karunakaran Kalesh^1,2*Euzebio Guimarães Barbosa^3*Alessandro Kappel Jordão^3*

• ¹National Horizons Centre, Teesside University, Darlington, United Kingdom
• ²Teesside University School of Health and Life Sciences, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom
• ³Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil

target deconvolution, host-directed and delivery innovations, and, where appropriate, resistance-aware combinations. Five articles were accepted; all focused on Leishmania biology and therapy. While no Chagas disease studies were included, several mechanistic and translational insights are likely applicable to T. cruzi, particularly where pathogen pathways or host responses are conserved. The articles in this Topic collectively map a coherent arc for antileishmanial drug discovery: from how we prioritise hits and leads to how we think about pharmacology, resistance, and the host response. Taken together, they delineate common scientific threads with direct implications for the next wave of candidates.A first theme is the re-emergence of N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) as a compelling antileishmanial target, approached from distinct starting points. Boudou Furthermore, shorter or reduced-dose regimens were well tolerated and could substantially improve treatment tolerability and accessibility. However, the authors emphasize that further studies are needed to confirm these results.