India Begins Tests With Fieser's Anti-Malarial Medicine, Lapinone

India is beginning tests of the antimalarial, lapinone, which was synthesized in Harvard labs, it was announced yesterday.

Louis F. Fieser, Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry, who invented the drug, arranged the tests while on a lecture tour of Indian universities this winter.

If these mass tests are successful, Fieser's drug may be a major solution of the malaria problem. Clinical tests so far have indicated that the drug not only gives immediate relief, but has curative powers.

During World War II synthetic derivatives of the chemical lapachol were successfully tested on animals infected with malaria at a U.S. government laboratory in Memphis. The attempt to use these chemicals to combat malaria in humans failed. The failure was attributed to metabolic oxidation which deactivated the chemicals.

Fieser and his associates met the problem of oxidation with the synthesis of the drug, lapinone. In contrast to lapinone, none of the other known anti-malarials have curative powers.

India will be an excellent testing ground for the new drug since there are 75,000,000 cases of malaria a year in that country. The Malaria Institute of India at Delhi and the School of Tropical Medicine in Calcutta are cooperating with Fieser in the tests.