Malaria

Lourival Possani of the Institute of Biotechnology at the National University of Mexico will investigate the antimalarial effects of scorpine, a newly identified peptide found in the venom of scorpions. The team will test scorpine's efficacy in blocking K+ channels used by malaria parasites to replicate in mosquitoes. Creating a new generation of malaria-resistant mosquitoes can aid in the eradication of the disease in humans.

Richard Sayre of Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in the U.S. will develop and test a transgenic algae that delivers interference RNA (RNAi) elements to mosquito larvae when they feed on it. These RNAi will silence essential genes used by the larvae to develop, thus killing mosquitoes before they can transmit malaria.

Viktor Vegh of The University of Queensland in Australia will test the efficacy of using low-cost nuclear magnetic resonance technologies that take advantage of earth's magnetic field to detect malaria parasites. The team will examine blood samples to detect hemozoin, a waste product of malarial parasites, to determine the presence of malaria infection

Sungano Mharakurwa of the Malaria Institute in Zambia proposes to take advantage of the "off-season" in regions affected by malaria. The team will identify asymptomatic carriers of the malaria parasite using a simple, non-invasive diagnostic tool using saliva samples which can be easily used by village community workers. Those individuals will be treated to eliminate the parasite before it can be transmitted during the rainy season, when malaria cases increase.

Victor Nussenzweig of the New York University School of Medicine in the U.S. seeks to develop a small molecule drugs to inhibit key kinase enzymes in the malaria parasite that are thought to control latency in parasite infections. Such fundamental knowledge may enable new tools to clear the latent forms of P. vivax parasites or block transmission of the disease by targeting sporozoites.

Daniel Fletcher of the University of California, Berkeley in the U.S. will develop a microscope that attaches to cell phones to capture high-contrast fluorescent images of malaria parasites. Custom software on the phone will automatically count the parasite load, with results and patient information wirelessly transmitted to clinical centers for tracking.

Steven Maranz of Weill Medical College in the U.S. will test the hypothesis that providing children high levels of flavanols, compounds found in chocolate, green tea, cola and shea nuts, deprives malaria parasites of lipids needed to survive, keeping parasite infection at levels low enough to elicit a strong immune response that builds lifelong immunity.

Matthias Marti of the Harvard School of Public Health in the U.S. will utilize a newly developed transgenic malaria parasite that expresses GFP indicating when the parasites are ready to be transmitted to mosquitoes. He will use this technology to screen for compounds that can prevent the development of these gametocytes.

Moriya Tsuji of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in the U.S. will test whether the human malaria parasite can infect mice engineered with humanized livers and red blood cells by producing human erythropoietin. The goal of this project is part of a larger effort to create a mouse model capable of supporting the full malaria life cycle for use in preclinical testing of new anti-malarial therapies and vaccines.

Michael Leibowitz of the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in the U.S. will investigate whether malaria parasites bind to, invade and replicate in the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels to test the theory that endothelial cells play an important role in the development of malaria infection and may serve as undiscovered reservoirs for parasite latency.