Preventative Measures
New discoveries are being made every day in the field of molecular biology, but the most recent and interesting find this week has to do with the most dangerous form of malaria.
So, before we get into the article I found, I wanted to brush up on some background information of malaria. Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. Once infected, an individual could experience fever, chills, and other flu-like symptoms. If left untreated, one could develop severe complications and ultimately die. Some statistics from the Centers for Disease Control states that malaria, in 2015, affected roughly 212 million people, killing roughly 429,000.
So, now that we all know how serious malaria, I would like to introduce an article that may have an answer to improving the vaccine for Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Plasmodium falciparum malaria is the most deadly form and an international research team has found that carbohydrates on the surface of the malaria parasite plays a critical role in the infection of the mosquito and human hosts.
The malaria parasite was found to actually tag proteins with carbohydrates to stabilize and transport them so that the parasite's lifecycle could complete. This tagging ability allows the parasite to migrate through the body and invade any cell. This ability also helps the malaria parasite to be transmitted back to the mosquito to continue the cycle of infection. If there was some sort of interference with the parasite's ability to attach to its proteins, then the expected infection would not occur and the parasite would not transmit to the mosquito. This would weaken the parasite so severely that it would have no chance of survival within the host.
Before this discovery, it was thought that carbohydrates were extremely unimportant to malaria parasites. Now, the team is relying on this new information to hopefully eradicate malaria by attacking its dependence on carbohydrates.
Sources Used:
https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170915095216.htm
So, before we get into the article I found, I wanted to brush up on some background information of malaria. Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite. Once infected, an individual could experience fever, chills, and other flu-like symptoms. If left untreated, one could develop severe complications and ultimately die. Some statistics from the Centers for Disease Control states that malaria, in 2015, affected roughly 212 million people, killing roughly 429,000.
So, now that we all know how serious malaria, I would like to introduce an article that may have an answer to improving the vaccine for Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Plasmodium falciparum malaria is the most deadly form and an international research team has found that carbohydrates on the surface of the malaria parasite plays a critical role in the infection of the mosquito and human hosts.
The malaria parasite was found to actually tag proteins with carbohydrates to stabilize and transport them so that the parasite's lifecycle could complete. This tagging ability allows the parasite to migrate through the body and invade any cell. This ability also helps the malaria parasite to be transmitted back to the mosquito to continue the cycle of infection. If there was some sort of interference with the parasite's ability to attach to its proteins, then the expected infection would not occur and the parasite would not transmit to the mosquito. This would weaken the parasite so severely that it would have no chance of survival within the host.
Before this discovery, it was thought that carbohydrates were extremely unimportant to malaria parasites. Now, the team is relying on this new information to hopefully eradicate malaria by attacking its dependence on carbohydrates.
Sources Used:
https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170915095216.htm
I found your post to be interesting. I actually know a quite bit about malaria due to the fact that I travel to Nigeria frequently. I found the disease to be terrifying because of its mode of transmission. Its crazy how getting a mosquito bite in the wrong part of the world can literally kill you.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be a repeating trend sometimes. We find something that does not do much and realized it was a valuable part of a whole. Finding this weakness we have ignored must be great for future research who have seen this the same way. Since this focuses on one of the stronger malaria types I wonder if anything can transfer over to others.
ReplyDeleteI like how you began with some intro and go into what is new information about the disease. Now that we know what is something normal the parasite is able to do we can begin finding ways to disrupt it.