Melbourne-based scientists made some new findings in what is believed to be a significant breakthrough in the fight against the tropical disease Malaria.

 

The collaborative research involving the scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and associates at Oxford and Liverpool universities, has uncovered the process that helps the disease hijack red blood cells.

 

Malaria kills more than 2 million people every year, with many of the victims being young children and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa and in some parts of Asia.

 

The disease is caused by a parasite which infects red blood cells and is transmitted by mosquitoes.

 

The need for new treatments for malaria is increasing as the parasite develops resistance to existing treatments.

 

Professor Alan Cowman from the Walter and Eliza Institute, says they have found how an adhesive stops the parasite being flushed out by the immune system, with the help of eight proteins.

 

These proteins allow the infected blood cells to stick to the walls of blood vessels so they are not destroyed by travelling to the spleen.

 

Professor Cowman says the breakthrough will lead to research into new anti-malarial drugs.Identification of these sticky proteins will actually lead to potential treatments targeting these new proteins.

  

This breakthrough may also help in the development of genetically attenuated parasites that can no longer stick within the body and these could be used potentially as a live vaccine as has been done with many other things such as Hepatitis B.