14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists have been trying to make sense of how malaria infects people for many years, but thus far the pathogen has guarded its secrets fiercely. A new observations technique being developed at MIT could finally shed some light on this bacteria.
The disease is caused by infection with the protozoa parasite called Plasmodium falciparum, which enters the blood stream, and then uses blood cells as incubators for future generations.
Once the cycle is complete, the blood cells rupture, releasing more parasites into the blood stream, which then go on to infect even more cells, beginning the cycle anew.
The disease, which is carried predominately by mosquitoes, affects nearly 250 million people worldwide, and about 1 million of them die every year due to the infection, or ensuing complications.
Thus far, the parasite could be killed using either chloroquine or artemisinin, but it is currently exhibiting increased resistance to both these widely-used drugs.
“Outside of artemisinin and chloroquine, there really isn’t a huge arsenal for effectively treating malaria,” says Jacquin Niles, an assistant professor of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The expert has recently developed a new observations technique targeted at Plasmodium, which makes it a lot easier for geneticists to pinpoint the genes involved in various functions the pathogen needs to survive.
“Once we have a map of where the vulnerabilities are in the parasite’s arsenal, we can think about targeting them for therapeutics – whether a vaccine or new drugs,” the scientist explains.
Niles, who recently won a $1.5 million, five-year New Innovator grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pursue his research, published details of the technique in a recent issue of the esteemed journal ACS Chemical Biology.
In past studies, scientists have demonstrated that the parasite's genes are turned on and off at very precise times, in order for transcription to take place. This is a process essential for multiplying.
The technique Niles developed helps expert block messenger RNA (mRNA), the cellular molecules that are responsible for carrying instructions from DNA to the rest of the cell.
“Plasmodium has a really bizarre strategy for controlling transcription. There are few clear-cut regulatory components,” the team leader says.
By using this approach, experts hope to discover which genes are essential to the survival of the pathogen. These genes will then become targets for new drugs.
This objective will be achieved by selectively turning off most of the microorganism's genes, in a one-by-one approach.