Binghamton University Scientists Receive Grant to Study Malaria

Malaria may not seem to be that big a problem, but it is responsible for 1-3 million deaths a year. Most of them are children under 5 who living sub-Saharan Africa.

Binghamton University a part of the State University of New York system, has received a grant in the amount of $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health to be used for research aimed at gaining an understanding of how the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, has evolved to the point where it has developed a resistance to a medication, chloroquine, that was once one of the most potent weapons against the disease.

The two lead researchers on the project J. Koji Lum, associate professor of anthropology and biological sciences
and Ralph Garruto, professor of biomedical anthropology have collected close to 11,000 archived human blood samples all of which were collected from malaria regions of the Pacific. They span a good deal of time. The first ones were collected in the 1950s and they have continued to collect them up to the present time.

They will analyze the samples and document all of the genetic changes in the blood that have rendered chloroquine ineffective

As deadly as malaria is, it is really not that hard to eliminate in locations that have a good health care infrastructure, but in the developing nations of the world, and especially in the tropical areas, it is usually treated by chemotherapy.

Parasites develop a resistance to drugs. Hopefully, this study will help the scientists develop an understanding of just how the malaria parasite has been able to accomplish the feat. Another thing they will be looking for is how this relates to current treatments for the disease.

Not only will the research tell them how the resistance to chloroquine developed, but it will show them how to prevent it from happening in future drugs, at least so they can get them to last as long as possible before they too become ineffective.

This will be the first study to actually use blood samples as well as parasites that have been collected over the last 50 years. They will be able to watch the samples and see how they change from the past to the present and be able to see the gene mutations as they occur. It will be sort of like taking a trip back in time in a time machine and then every so slowly traveling forward again.

source: State University of New York http://urel.binghamton.edu/