The emergence of resistance to conventional antimalarial treatments remains a major cause for concern. New drugs that target the distinct development stages of Plasmodium parasites are required to address this risk. Herein, water‐soluble aggregation‐induced emission active cyclometalated iridium(III) polypyridyl complexes (Ir1–Ir12) are developed for the elimination of malaria parasites. Remarkably, these complexes show potent antimalarial activity in low nanomolar range against 3D7 (chloroquine and artemisinin sensitive strain), RKL9 (chloroquine resistant strain), and R539T (artemisinin resistant strains) strains of Plasmodium falciparum with faster killing rate of malaria parasites. Concomitantly, these complexes exhibit efficient in vivo antimalarial activity against both the asexual and gametocyte stages of Plasmodium berghei malaria parasite, suggesting promising transmission‐blocking potential. The complexes tend to localize into mitochondria of P. falciparum determined by image and cell‐based assay. The mechanistic studies reveal that these complexes exert their antimalarial activity by increasing reactive oxygen species levels and disrupting its mitochondrial membrane potential. Furthermore, the mitochondrial‐dependent antimalarial activity of these complexes is confirmed in yeast model. Thus, this study for the first time highlights the potential role of targeting P. falciparum mitochondria by iridium complexes in discovering and developing the next‐generation antimalarial agents for treating multidrug resistant malaria parasites.

Photoactivatable or photoremovable protecting groups (PPGs) have become a powerful material and gained enormous interest in the field of biomedical applications. PPGs have been utilized for noninvasive, on-demand, spatio-temporal controlled release of biological effectors by irradiation with light to induce biochemical function. Over the past few years, o-hydroxycinnamate (oHC)-based PPGs have received considerable attention for the release of molecules of interest by either UV (one-photon) or near-IR (two-photon) irradiation. In this miniperspective, we have summarized the development of oHC PPGs for bioimaging and the controlled release of therapeutics, bioactive volatiles and other payloads with real-time monitoring. In addition, several future perspectives of oHC systems have been highlighted at the end of this miniperspective.

Photoactivatable protecting groups (PPGs) have become the powerful materials for controlling the activity of biologically important molecules in biomedical field. However, designing PPG that can be efficiently activated by biologically...

Infectious diseases caused by bacteria pose a major threat to human health and are currently one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Therefore, the development of probes for rapid...

Objectives: To study a two-decade economic analysis of Minimum Support Price (MSP) trends compared to the cost of production of major crops of India and understand the real impact of price policy formed by the Government of India. Methods: The period of the analysis is from 1999 to 2019 (20 years) and the data sources consulted are Cost of cultivation and Farm Harvest price from Directorate of economics and statistics, Minimum support price from Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and Awareness report of farmers by Questioner based survey. Compound annual growth rate and percentage analysis are used as a statistical tool for this research. To access the impact, Tamil Nadu has been taken as the model state with two model crops Paddy and Cotton and its comparative analysis is done with reference states Punjab and Maharashtra for Cost of Cultivation components and Profitability.  Findings: The finding of this research unravels that Wheat, Groundnut and Cotton are getting supported largely due to MSP policy, Paddy and Black gram are barely supportive as there is cutthroat competition between MSP and the Cost of Cultivation and sugarcane is not supported by MSP policy. The comparative and profitability analysis unravels how labour cost is the major cost in Tamil Nadu and paddy is profitable whereas cotton is not. Novelty: Therefore, this research depicts that MSP has been supporting the farming community on the policy end. But it’s not working as a fundamental supporting system for the majority of farmers as it’s not exercised by majority of farmers due to low awareness and inefficiency of the system.