THE GENES THAT TURN MALARIA INTO A KILLER

“A small group of proteins are associated with the most severe strains of malarial infection and their discovery is a step towards a vaccine against the deadliest forms of the disease” A story on Duffy lab Tonkin-Hill 2018 PLoS Biology paper in Pursuit by Dr Daryl Holland, University of Melbourne.

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-genes-that-turn-malaria-into-a-killer

new paper identifies severe malaria associated parasite proteins that might be vaccine candidates

A new paper from our lab (Tonkin-Hill G et al  The Plasmodium falciparum transcriptome in severe malaria reveals altered expression of genes involved in important processes including surface antigen-encoding var genes. PLoS Biol. 2018 Mar 12;16(3):e2004328. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2004328) has identified novel PfEMP1 proteins that are expressed by parasites that cause severe malaria and that could possibly be used in vaccines to protect from severe malaria disease. Approximately 400,000 people die of malaria every year, most of them children under 5 years of age in Africa. A vaccine that protected from severe malaria disease would replicate natural immunity which protects from disease but not infection.