Posted on 02/03/2009 8:09:41 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The research, performed in collaboration with Professor John Dalton at the University of Technology, Sydney, provides a new approach to treating and controlling the disease that is contracted by half a billion people and causes around 1 million deaths a year.
The team, based at the Monash University ARC Centre of Excellence in Structural and Functional Microbial Genomics, has been able to deactivate the final stage of the malaria parasite's digestive machinery, effectively starving the parasite of nutrients and disabling its survival mechanism. This process of starvation leads to the death of the parasite.
Professor Whisstock said the results had laid the scientific groundwork to further develop a specific class of drugs to treat the disease.
"About forty percent of the world's population are at risk of contracting malaria. It is only early days but this discovery could one day provide treatment for some of those 2.5 billion people across the globe," Professor Whisstock said.
"Drug-resistant malaria is an ever increasing problem, meaning that there is an urgent requirement to develop new therapeutic strategies."
Researchers used the Australian Synchrotron, located adjacent to Monash University's Clayton campus. The results are published today in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A.
Lead author of the research paper, Dr Sheena McGowan, from the Monash University NHMRC program on protease systems biology said their findings prove their concept.
"We had an idea as to how malaria could be starved and we have shown this, chemically, can be done," Dr McGowan said.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
Why spend research money on finding a malaria treatment when the need for finding an AIDS cure is so much more pressing?
(Sigh)
My thought was, if they can cure malaria, there is no reason not to go back to using DDT. The left is going to have to come up with another way to kill a few billion people.
DDT is the best thing that happened to earth with the exception of those pesky bugs…period!!!
As a matter of fact, in the next few days I’m going our local hardware store (Panama) and find out if they carry DDT under a different name. It is banned in the U.S., but I am not sure if it is banned in Panama under a different name but using the same basic chemical products.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
and learn how we have always been in charge of changing the world to suit us.....Kill those Bad Critters.
P.S.
“...but I am not sure if it is banned in Panama under a different name but using the same basic chemical products.”
I meant to say: “...but I am not sure if it is TOTALLY banned in Panama. They may be using a different bran name but using the same basic chemical products.”
Sorry for any confusion.
the disease that is contracted by half a billion people and causes around 1 million deaths a year... "About forty percent of the world's population are at risk of contracting malaria. It is only early days but this discovery could one day provide treatment for some of those 2.5 billion people across the globe," Professor Whisstock said."is contracted by half a billion people" -- in what time frame? It can't be yearly, it must be something else, such as, "in a human lifetime". Thanks Ernest.
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