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Tackling the spread of Malaria

New insights help the development of therapeutic and vaccine strategies to treat the millions of malaria patients worldwide

This is a photo of malaria infected blood cells
Images of the malaria infected blood cells at 2 different stages of egress (the exit of the parasites for a new round of infection)

Malaria is a major global killer, causing around 600,000 deaths a year in the developing world, mainly of children. 

Of the five species of the parasite that infect humans, Plasmodium falciparum is the most lethal. Although effective anti-malarial drugs are available, it is a matter of serious global concern that this particular parasite is developing resistance to the drug artemisinin, the treatment of last resort when all other malaria drugs have failed due to resistant strains.

The appearance and spread of resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum pose an increasing risk, due to its complex life cycle in both its mosquito and human hosts.

Once a human host has been infected, the parasites multiply inside their host cell, and when mature, they escape via a process called egress, and immediately invade many other red blood cells. They hijack their host cells and redirect cell activity for their own benefit. Plasmodium falciparum infected cells express parasite-encoded adhesive protrusions (known as 'knobs') on their surface, enabling them to escape capture by the spleen and cause the most dangerous form of malaria, leading to death by obstruction of capillaries in the brain.

What we’re researching:

Using electron tomography, video microscopy of live cells and soft X-ray tomography, we have uncovered new details of the changes to the red blood cell membranes and cytoskeleton during egress, leading to the discovery of a previously undescribed, early step in egress.

Using the methods we have developed, along with powerful new gene modification tools in Plasmodium falciparum, we are exploring the molecular and cellular basis of membrane and cytoskeleton reorganisation during egress. 

“Finding new ways to halt malaria’s progression is vital if we are to reduce the hundreds of thousands of deaths that occur each year due to it.”

This is a photo of a cake made by Dr Vicky Hale, a former PhD student at Birkbeck, in the shape of a malaria-infected red blood cell.
A cake made by Dr Vicky Hale, a former PhD student at Birkbeck, in the shape of a malaria-infected red blood cell.

What will the impact be?

Professor Saibil said, “Malaria is a major killer. Finding new ways to halt malaria’s progression is vital if we are to reduce the hundreds of thousands of deaths that occur each year due to it. These findings are an important step towards developing new treatments that tackle the disease in different ways to the existing drugs, which mostly focus on stopping the parasite from multiplying within the cell.”

"Our research will yield new insights into the molecular and cellular events  leading to egress. A better understanding of this process will help the development of therapeutic and vaccine strategies to treat the millions of malaria patients worldwide," Dr Saibil adds.

"If we can block egress, the clinical symptoms and progression of malaria would be arrested. Our experiments are developing new tools, reagents and methodology, (such as methods for electron and X-ray tomography of infected cells, transformed malaria strains), which we will share with the wider research community through publications, public database depositions, and laboratory websites. The techniques used in this research also contribute to the training in state-of-the-art electron microscopy methods, a field in which there is ongoing international academic and industrial interest."

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