There were over 200 cases of malaria worldwide, in 2012.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A strain of malaria that is most common in India, southeast Asia, and South America may now be treatable, thanks to the efforts of a research team at the Washington University in St. Louis, led by Indian American scientist Dr. Niraj Tolia.
Tolia, an assistant professor of molecular microbiology and of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, along with his team, discovered that the relatively common strain can be treated in a unique way. Their process involves binding a parasite protein to the malaria strand that neutralizes it, preventing it from causing any more damage to the host’s body.
The reason this particular strand – called Plasmodium vivax, or P. vivax for short – is so dangerous is because the strain often infects the host and then lays dormant in their liver for as much as several years, giving humans the appearance of being perfectly healthy even though they may not be. After laying dormant, the strain begins attacking red blood cells, which the body uses to transport oxygen throughout the body.
The findings of Tolia’s study were published in the PLOS Pathogens journal on January 9. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were over 200 million cases of malaria around the world in 2012 alone, making it one of the most prevalent diseases on Earth. The majority of the cases occurred in Africa.
“Malaria is a devastating parasitic disease that kills one million people annually,” says Tolia’s study, in its introductory section. “Although widespread efforts to develop a vaccine by identifying and combining critical parasite blood-stage proteins are underway, a protective vaccine for malaria has proved challenging.”
Tolia goes on to explain that “Our work demonstrates that identifying the regions targeted by antibodies, and the mechanisms by which antibodies that prevent invasion function, should drive future vaccine development and studies measuring the effectiveness of current vaccine combinations.”
Tolia has an entire laboratory named after him at Washington University, as part of the departments of Molecular Microbiology & Microbial Pathogenesis and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics. He earned his B.Sc. in biochemistry from the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine in London from 1995-1999, and earned his Ph.D. in biological sciences from the Watson School of Biological Sciences’ Cold Spring Laboratory in New York from 1999-2004. He has been at Washington University since 2007.
The full study published by Tolia and his lab can be read here.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com