Antisense Nucleotides as Therapeutic Agents-
A very effective and specific approach for treatment of a variety of diseases is to design and use oligonucleotides (say 25-35 bases long) complementary to the 5f-ends of the parasite mRNAs; such oligonucleotides are called antisense oligonucleotides.

The antisense oligonucleotide may be linked to an acridine for increased effectiveness. When such oligonucleotides were used on cultured blood parasite Trypanosoma brucei, the parasite was killed. This approach has been quite successful in the treatment of cancer, and antisense oligonucleotides are in various stages of evaluation.