14 DAY TRIAL // Malaria is one of the most dangerous diseases out there today, mostly because it can spread rapidly among the general population. Additionally, there is no cure against it at this point, and its consequences on the human body are devastating. Scientists have been struggling to find a solution to this problem for many, many years, but they have failed. Now, new hope is brought forward by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute experts, who announce that they have found a series of molecules that appears to hold great promise as a possible treatment against malaria.
The parasite Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for the most common forms of the disease. As mosquitoes bite and infect people, the microorganism affixes itself to the red blood cells of the immune system, and starts burrowing inside them. The way it does that is by using a set of protein tools, which are extremely efficient at what they do. This is called the blood stage of the diseases. Once the malaria proteins penetrate the outer layer of the red blood cell, the parasite begins to multiply out of control right inside the cell. A high concentration of the microorganism can lead to the onset and development of a large number of conditions, and can even cause death.
What the WEHI team discovered was that, during the blood stage, the malaria parasite produced some proteins that appeared to be able to bolster the response of the human immune system against Plasmodium falciparum. Scientists Dr. James Beeson, Dr. Freya Fowkes and Dr. Jack Richards, all based at the Institute's Infection and Immunity Division, say that exploiting this vulnerability could provide researchers with a way to attack the microorganism with its own weapons. The team has also collaborated with University of Melbourne expert Dr. Julie Simpson for this study. Details of the work appear in the January 18 issue of the open-access medical journal PLoS Medicine.
“As well as presenting an enormous health burden, malaria also has a major impact on social and economic development in countries where the disease is endemic. Vaccines are urgently needed to reduce the burden of malaria and perhaps eventually eradicate the disease. A malaria vaccine that stimulates an efficient immune response against the proteins that malaria parasites use to burrow into red blood cells would stop the parasite from replicating and prevent severe illness,” Beeson says.
“Only about six blood-stage malaria proteins have been well studied out of a potential 100 proteins. There is an urgent need for malaria researchers to better coordinate their research efforts on these proteins. This will take us one step closer to developing an effective vaccine,” Dr. Fowkes adds, and reveals that very little is actually known about malaria. The investigation was made possible with money from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, as well as a Victorian Government Operational Infrastructure Support grant.