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Antibody-based therapies effective at controlling malaria
May 18, 2007Passive immunization through the development of fully human antibodies specific to Plasmodium falciparum may be effective at controlling the disease, report researchers led by Dr. Richard S. McIntosh from the University of Nottingham in a paper published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. The researchers developed these novel reagents by antibody repertoire cloning generated from immune Gambian adults.
While it remains unclear if in vitro assays are predictive of functional immunity in humans, due to the lack of suitable animal models, according to this study antimalarial efficacy of human antibodies can be determined using rodent malaria parasites transgenic for P. falciparum antigens in mice and humans. An in vivo mouse model has significant advantage over the use of new world primates, the only other model for human malaria, which are labor-intensive and difficult to reproduce.
These novel human reagents cured mice of an otherwise lethal malaria infection, and protection was crucially dependent on human antibody receptors.
Malaria currently rivals HIV and tuberculosis as the world's most deadly infection, killing two to three million people a year or roughly one person every 30 seconds. The model described in this study provides both a test for therapeutic antibody efficacy prior to clinical trials in humans and an important tool in malaria vaccine development.
Public Library of Science
Malaria currently rivals HIV and tuberculosis as the world's most deadly infection, killing two to three million people a year or roughly one person every 30 seconds. The model described in this study provides both a test for therapeutic antibody efficacy prior to clinical trials in humans and an important tool in malaria vaccine development.
Public Library of Science
Malaria Current Events and Malaria News RSSScientists decode genome of parasite that causes relapsing malaria
Scientists have deciphered the complete genetic sequence of the parasite Plasmodium vivax, the leading cause of relapsing malaria, and compared it with the genomes of other species of malaria parasites.
Common insecticide can decimate tadpole populations
The latest findings of a University of Pittsburgh-based project to determine the environmental impact of routine pesticide use suggests that malathion--the most popular insecticide in the United States--can decimate tadpole populations by altering their food chain, according to research published in the Oct. 1 edition of Ecological Applications.
Nanotech and synbio: Americans don't know what's coming
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New way to make malaria medicine also first step in finding new antibiotics
University of Illinois microbiology professor William Metcalf and his collaborators have developed a way to mass-produce an antimalarial compound, potentially making the treatment of malaria less expensive.
New UNC laboratory to help track and control tropical diseases
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health has established a new Gillings Innovation Lab to track and map tropical infectious diseases such as malaria, using state-of-the-art molecular and demographic methods.
Hidden infections crucial to understanding, controlling disease outbreaks
Scientists and news organizations typically focus on the number of dead and gravely ill during epidemics, but research at the University of Michigan suggests that less dramatic, mild infections lurking in large numbers of people are the key to understanding cycles of at least one potentially fatal infectious disease: cholera.
New insights could lead to a better pneumococcal vaccine
Discovery of a new, previously unknown mechanism of immunity suggests that there may be a better way to protect vulnerable children and adults against Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcal) infection, say researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
Purifying parasites with light
Researchers have developed a clever method to purify parasitic organisms from their host cells, which will allow for more detailed proteomic studies and a deeper insight into the biology of organisms that cause millions of cases of disease each year.
'Dodgy dossier' partly to blame for failure of war against malaria in the tropics
The war against malaria in tropical countries was fought and lost in the 20th Century on the basis of faulty intelligence, a 'dodgy dossier' which argued that the same methods used to tackle the disease in temperate countries would also work in the tropics.
Best way to treat malaria: Avoid using same drug for everyone, scientists say
A team of scientists employing a sophisticated computer model pioneered at Princeton University and Resources for the Future has found that many governments worldwide are recommending the wrong kind of malaria treatment.
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