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Fly gut bacteria may help fight sleeping sickness

May 11, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 11 (ANI): Scientists in France have discovered a new bacterial species in the gut of the fly that transmits African sleeping sickness. They say that the bacteria could be engineered to kill the parasite that causes the disease.

According to researchers from IRD, the French Research Institute for Development in Montpellier, France, the study could lead to new approaches to control this fatal infection that is becoming resistant to drug therapy.

As part of the research, the authors isolated the novel bacterium from the midgut of the tsete fly that also harbours the protozoan Trypanosoma brucei gambiense (Tbg), responsible for Human African Trypanosomiasis, known as sleeping sickness.

The new bacterium was named Serratia glossinae after genomic analysis showed it was closely genetically linked to other bacteria in the Serratia genus.

Interestingly one of the species in this genus is able to kill another trypanosome that causes Chagas” disease in South America.

This has prompted the group to hypothesise that the Serratia group of bacteria has the potential to be exploited to treat trypanosomiasis.

More than 60 million people are exposed to African sleeping sickness in Sub-Saharan Africa. The causative agent, Tbg, can be transmitted through the bites of infected flies that feed on human blood.

The parasite multiplies in the blood of infected individuals and may eventually invade the brain. Infections by Tbg are often asymptomatic for months or years and can remain undetected until patients are in advanced stages of the disease. Without treatment, these infections are fatal.

The research could contribute to new treatment strategies that are desperately needed to fight African sleeping sickness. Current drugs are expensive and are not always effective due to increasing resistance of Tbg.

“Our work could lead to an alternative vector-based approach that exploits selected strains of bacteria naturally present in the fly”s gut to either kill the parasite, or prevent it from establishing itself in the gut,” said Dr Anne Geiger, lead author of the study.

The study has been published in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. (ANI)

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Wayne Bridge to face ex in court over cash battle

March 25, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, March 25 (ANI): English footballer Wayne Bridge is set to face former flame Vanessa Perroncel in a London court over weekly cash settlement.

The 29-year-old soccer star, who bedded the French lingerie model and shares son Jaydon, three, with her, was said to have offered her 3,000 pounds a month for child care.

Vanessa, 33, accused of bedding several footballers, on the other hand, is reportedly looking to claim more from the 88,000-pounds-a-week Manchester City defender, The Sun reported.

But Wayne is purportedly set to battle it out, convinced his ex was paid up to 800,000 pounds by fellow footie John Terry in return for her silence following her affair with the married star, a claim denied by Vanessa, who also aborted Terry”s baby during the affair.

A friend said: “Vanessa is not daunted by the prospect of facing Wayne in court. She will walk into court with her head held high and fight for a fair settlement. Wayne might not care about their son – he scarcely ever calls him – but Vanessa does and will tell the court how mean he has been. She won”t pull any punches.”

Sources close to Bridge said he offered the model 10,000 pounds-a-month along with a luxury home but Vanessa was looking to bag double the amount and an exclusive London property.

A source close to Bridge said of Vanessa: “Wayne cannot stand this woman. He felt hurt and betrayed by her but now he”s angry and is determined not to be taken to the cleaners. He loves his son and wants to be part of his life. But wants nothing to do with her – she”s a parasite.” (ANI)

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Invading black holes cause ‘cosmic flashes’

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 19 (ANI): Mathematicians at the University of Leeds, UK, have determined that cosmic flashes, known as gamma ray bursts, are produced by jets of plasma that originate from invading black holes.

Gamma ray bursts are beams of high-energy radiation that are similar to the radiation emitted by explosions of nuclear weapons.

The orthodox model for this cosmic jet engine involves plasma being heated by neutrinos in a disk of matter that forms around a black hole, which is created when a star collapses.

But, mathematicians at the University of Leeds, have come up with a different explanation: the jets come directly from black holes, which can dive into nearby massive stars and devour them.

Their theory is based on recent observations by the Swift satellite, which indicates that the central jet engine operates for up to 10,000 seconds – much longer than the neutrino model can explain.

Mathematicians believe that this is evidence for an electromagnetic origin of the jets, that is, that the jets come directly from a rotating black hole, and that it is the magnetic stresses caused by the rotation that focus and accelerate the jet’s flow.

For the mechanism to operate, the collapsing star has to be rotating extremely rapidly.

This increases the duration of the star’s collapse as the gravity is opposed by strong centrifugal forces.

One particularly peculiar way of creating the right conditions involves not a collapsing star, but a star invaded by its black hole companion in a binary system.

The black hole acts like a parasite, diving into the normal star, spinning it with gravitational forces on its way to the star’s centre, and finally eating it from the inside.

“The neutrino model cannot explain very long gamma ray bursts and the Swift observations, as the rate at which the black hole swallows the star becomes rather low quite quickly, rendering the neutrino mechanism inefficient, but the magnetic mechanism can,” said Professor Komissarov from the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds.

“Our knowledge of the amount of the matter that collects around the black hole and the rotation speed of the star allow us to calculate how long these long flashes will be – and the results correlate very well with observations from satellites,” he added. (ANI)

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Parasites’ quirky trick to persuade immune cells to invite them in for dinner

August 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 21 (ANI): Scientists from Imperial College London have found that parasite leishmania tricks immune system to let it enter the body and cause skin infection.

Leishmaniasis is an infection caused by Leishmania parasites that cause disfiguring and painful skin ulcers, and in severe cases the infection can also spread to the internal organs.

Patients with the infection often suffer from social exclusion because of their disfigurement.

Leishmania parasites are transmitted by sand flies. After the parasites infect a sand fly, they make a sticky gel so that when the fly bites a human, it regurgitates this gel into the body.

The new study conducted over mice showed that the gel persuades immune cells known as macrophages to feed the parasites, rather than killing them.

The gel helps the parasites to establish an infection by enticing macrophages to the bite site. Macrophages usually kill invading pathogens by eating and digesting them.

However, the gel persuades macrophages to engulf the parasites and feed them rather than digest them.

This happens within the first few days following infection, enabling the parasites to establish themselves and infect the skin.

“Leishmaniasis is a very debilitating disease, yet we know comparatively little about the way the parasites are transmitted by sand flies,” said Dr Matthew Rogers, lead author of the study from the Division of Investigative Science at Imperial College London.

“This is because when scientists study the disease they usually inject the parasite into tissues without including the gel or the sand fly’s saliva. Our new research shows that we must consider the way the parasites enter the body – along with the gel and saliva – if we are to recreate infection and get an accurate picture of what is going on.

“Our new research shows that Leishmania parasites are very cunning – they make their own gel to control the human immune system so they can establish a skin infection.

“There is more work to be done here – our previous work in mice has suggested that injecting a synthetic version of the gel into people might provide them with some protection against infection and we would like to explore this further,” he added.

The study is published in PLoS Pathogens. (ANI)

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Waste by-product of malaria parasite’s reproductive process linked to devastating fever

August 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 21 (ANI): Studying hemozoin – a crystal-like by-product released during reproduction among parasites from the Plasmodium family – may help understand why malaria leads to devastating inflammation and fever, according to a Canadian study.

Lead researcher Dr. Martin Olivier, of McGill University in Montreal, points out that, inside the human body, the malaria parasite infects red blood cells where it survives and reproduces by feeding on the cells’ contents.

Eventually, says the researcher, the cells burst and release the parasites and hemozoin.

“Our results describe the mechanism by which the hemozoin activates the immune system, resulting in the production of inflammation mediators and in the high fever that we witness in malaria patients,” said study’s first-author Dr. Marina Tiemi Shio, of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC).

According to the researchers, hemozoin is first ingested by “cleaning” cells called macrophages, which leads to a chain reaction ending in the activation of the inflammasome: an important structure inside immune cells which lead to inflammation.

They say that the activation of the inflammasome leads to the production of the body’s fever mediator, interleukin beta (IL-beta).

“Our work is a milestone in that it is the first study that reveals the enzymes that act as intermediary between the hemozoin and inflammasome. Now our picture of the process that goes from infection to fever is more or less complete,” said Dr. Olivier.

“On the other hand, we also proved that malaria is too complex to be narrowed down to one single mechanism. In the absence of either IL-beta or a functional inflammsaome, the development of the disease is delayed but not completely stopped. Although the discovery of this relationship is important, there are other mechanisms at work,” he added.

Even though scientists have been familiar with the mechanisms that go from the activation of the inflammasome to the onset of the malaria symptoms, none of the previous studies has ever shown the beginning of the process.

“These results prove the primary role hemozoin plays in the development of malaria, and designates it as a favoured choice for future innovative treatments,” said Dr. Olivier.

The researchers believe it will be possible to familiarize the immune system to small quantities of hemozoin, and diminish the inflammatory response in the event of infection, according to a principle similar to that of vaccines.

The results of the study have been published in the journal PLoS Pathogens. (ANI)

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Friendly gut bacteria can help fight infection

August 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 20 (ANI): Scientists from UT Southwestern Medical Centre have discovered friendly human gut bacteria that helps initiate body’s defence mechanisms to fight parasitic infection toxoplasmosis.

The bacteria triggers defence against Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis.

Toxoplasmosis is generally a mild infection, but it can have serious and potentially fatal effects in pregnant women, their fetuses and others with weakened immune systems.

Studies conducted over mice have shown that T gondii directly activates a specific immune protein in the host, called toll-like receptor 11 (TLR-11), which helps control the animals’ immune response to the parasite. Humans, however, don’t have an active form of this receptor.

In the new study, researchers suggest that instead of activating toll-like receptors directly, T gondii’s first interaction in the human gut is with the helpful bacteria that live inside the body.

Those bacteria then release signaling molecules, alerting the human host to the invader.

“While this is very early data, our results suggest that looking at the bacteria present in each patient’s gut could help physicians understand their susceptibility to infectious diseases,” said Dr. Felix Yarovinsky, assistant professor of immunology at UT Southwestern and senior author of the paper.

“It also suggests the possibility of developing novel probiotic strategies for treating parasitic infections such as toxoplasmosis and cryptosporidiosis, a related disease caused by the parasite Cryptosporidium,” Yarovinsky added.

The primary host of protozoan parasite is the house cat, which are generally infected with T gondii by ingesting contaminated meat, water or the feces of a cat that has recently been infected; however, the parasite also can be passed from mother to fetus. Once a person is infected, the parasite penetrates the intestine and spreads throughout all organs.

The researchers studied mice in which TLR-11 had been genetically eliminated. This mimics the human immune response to T gondii. They then infected the TRL-11-deficient mice with T gondii.

They found that the commensal – or good – bacteria in the gut activated their immune system, thereby inducing various inflammatory responses against the invading pathogen.

In humans it is those helpful bacteria that send activating signals to the three toll-like receptors that are functional, inducing various inflammatory responses against invading pathogens like T gondii.

The study appears in journal of Cell Host and Microbe. (ANI)

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OZ woman opens hair lice salon!

August 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, August 9 (ANI): A woman has opened southeast Queensland’s first hair lice salon to help schoolchildren get rid of the parasite.

The problem she faced delousing her five children when they all went to school apparently inspired Judy Butters.

The salon at Deception Bay, north of Brisbane is making good business after just over two months of operation, since half of all Queensland schoolchildren are estimated to have head lice.

And it’s not just children who visit, even nurses from aged care facilities come with the problem.

“They catch them from the patients at the home,” the Courier Mail quoted Butters as saying.

She does not think the job is disgusting.

She said: “It’s very common. It’s not disgusting.”

The salon provides a qualified hairdresser too, who provides haircutting services after the delousing treatment.

The owner added: “A lot of hairdressers won’t touch heads with lice. I had that experience with my daughter. She was just humiliated and told to leave because the hairdresser found one egg.”

The treatment involves an “all-natural” lice product, followed by combing to remove the parasites and their eggs, for which Judy charges anything between 27 dollars for short hair to 57 dollars for very long hair. (ANI)

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Sex evolved as a defence against parasites, suggests article

July 7, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 7 (ANI): Sex may have evolved in part as a defence against parasites, suggests a research article.

Published in the journal American Naturalist, the article highlights the fact that when an asexual creature reproduces, it makes clones-exact genetic copies of itself.

It further point out that each clone has the same genes, and, consequently, the same genetic vulnerabilities to parasites.

The article states that if a parasite emerges that can exploit those vulnerabilities, it can wipe out the whole population.

Sexual offspring, on the other hand, are genetically unique, often with different parasite vulnerabilities. That is why, says the write-up, a parasite that can destroy some can’t necessarily destroy all.

In theory, that should help sexual populations maintain stability, while asexual populations face extinction at the hands of parasites.

These propositions are based on several pieces of research on Potamopyrgus antipodarum, a snail common in fresh water lakes in New Zealand which has both sexual and asexual versions.

Jukka Jokela of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Mark Dybdahl of the University of Washington and Curtis Lively of Indian University, Bloomington began observing several populations of these snails for ten years starting in 1994.

The researchers monitored the number of sexuals, the number asexuals, and the rates of parasite infection for both.

They found that clones that were plentiful at the beginning of the study became more susceptible to parasites over time.

As parasite infections increased, the once plentiful clones dwindled dramatically in number. Some clonal types disappeared entirely.

However, sexual snail populations remained much more stable over time. This, the authors say, is exactly the pattern predicted by the parasite hypothesis.

“The rise and fall of these female-only lineages was surprisingly fast and consistent with the prediction of the parasite hypothesis for sex. These results suggest that sexual reproduction provides an evolutionary advantage in parasite rich environments,” Jokela said. (ANI)

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Genetic map of widespread infection-causing parasite constructed

June 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 29 (ANI): In a major achievement, scientists at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio have constructed a genetic map of the parasite that causes schistosomiasis.

Schistosomiasis is a chronic intestinal infection that can damage internal organs and, in children, impair growth and cognitive development.

Schistosome parasites are flatworms that infect more than 200 million people a year worldwide.

“A genetic map is the essential tool needed for finding the genes that are responsible for drug resistance and pathogenesis in this parasite. In the case of drug resistance, identification of underlying mutations is critical for management of this disease,” said Dr. Timothy Anderson, of SFBR’s department of genetics.

He added: “First, identification of mutations allows us to better understand the mechanism of action of the drugs used, and to redesign drugs to restore treatment efficacy. Second, identification of mutations involved allows us to efficiently monitor the spread of resistance in parasite populations using simple molecular methods.”

For the study, the researchers used two adult flatworms to breed 88 S. mansoni offspring.

They then compared the genetic information of the offspring to the parents, and generated a genetic map of chromosomes of the pathogen.

These parasites have a complex lifecycle. Adult male and female worms measuring around half an inch, live in pairs in the blood vessels, and eggs are expelled in the faeces or urine.

The larval parasites initially develop in water snails and human infection occurs when parasite larvae burrow through the skin of people entering the water.

The researchers are planning further research using the genetic map to understand why some parasites cause more pathology than others.

The new study has been published in the journal Genome Biology. (ANI)

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Amino acid deficiency behind side effects of anti-malarial drug quinine

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 27 (ANI): University of Nottingham researchers say that the anti-malarial drug quinine has the potential to block a cell’s ability to take up the essential amino acid tryptophan, and this could explain many of the adverse side-effects associated with the drug.

The findings could mean that dietary tryptophan supplements could be a simple and inexpensive way to improve the performance of this important drug.

Quinine is a very commonly used anti-malarial drug, but, to date, the principal mode of quinine action against the malaria parasite has remained largely unclear.

The researchers don’t even have the idea of why the drug causes adverse reactions like nausea, headaches, and blurred vision.

Thus, Simon Avery and colleagues at the university took advantage of yeast genetics, and examined the effects of quinine on a collection of 6000 yeast mutants, each one lacking exactly one of the yeast’s 6000 genes.

It was found that yeast strains unable to make tryptophan were extremely susceptible to quinine poisoning, which led them to identify a tryptophan transporter as a key quinine target.

The above discovery supports the evidence that quinine reactions are more severe in malnourished individuals.

If quinine severely reduces tryptophan uptake, then it means that people with preexisting tryptophan deficiencies would be especially at risk to this drug.

The authors also noted that tryptophan is important as a precursor for the brain chemical serotonin, so the enhanced tryptophan deficiency induced by quinine could explain why many of quinine’s side effects are localized to the head region.

They also found that simply taking dietary tryptophan supplements in conjunction with quinine treatments could avert the side effects. (ANI)

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Baboons and humans tackle malarial infection similarly

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, June 25 (ANI): When it comes to coping with malaria, baboons and humans have similar stories to tell, according to researchers at the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.

The scientists found that variation in the same gene in humans and baboons produces the same kind of disease resistance.

Led by Gregory Wray, Susan Alberts and Jenny Tung, the study drew on Alberts’ longtime study of the yellow baboons in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park to examine the baboons’ susceptibility to a malaria-like parasite.

They then delved into the genetic basis for differences in the baboons’ vulnerability to infection.

After a fieldwork of over three summers in the East African savannah, the researchers discovered that 60 percent of the Amboseli baboons were infected with the malaria-like parasite.

The researchers found that variation in precisely the same regulatory gene also influences baboons’ chances of getting sick, by ratcheting their susceptibility to another, closely related parasite up or down.

The researchers observed that almost 60 percent of the Amboseli baboons were infected with the malaria-like parasite known as Hepatocystis.

“We had no idea so many of them were carrying this parasite,” Nature quoted Alberts as saying.

The newfound parallels between baboons and humans bring the long history of conflict between parasite and host into high relief.

“These researchers have made a very significant discovery that can only come from this kind of longterm study. It’s a great example of seeing the connections between evolutionary genomics and disease susceptibility and resistance,” said Jean Turnquist, NSF program officer.

The findings were published in the latest online edition of the journal Nature. (ANI)

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Malaria developing resistance to effective drugs, warn scientists

May 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 29 (ANI): Studies of patients in western Cambodia suggest that malaria could be developing resistance to the most effective type of drug, putting millions of lives at risk.

Scientists say tests indicate that treatments based on artemisinin are becoming less effective at combating the disease.

Currently, artemisinin treatments are the most effective way of fighting multi-drug resistant strains of malaria available. They usually clear the disease from the blood within three days.

However, the new studies have shown that they are taking longer to do so than before, which, researchers say, is an early warning sign that the parasite is developing resistance.

Scientists believe that the availability of fake malaria treatments in Cambodia, often containing small amounts of the real drug, is thought to be helping nurture resistance.

Professor Nick Day, of the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, who has been involved in the research, cautioned that the results could be devastating.

“Twice in the past, South East Asia has made a gift, unwittingly, of drug resistant parasites to the rest of the world, in particular to Africa,” the Telegraph quoted the BBC as saying.

“That’s the problem … if the same thing happens again, the spread of a resistant parasite from Asia to Africa, that will have devastating consequences for malaria control,” she added. (ANI)

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Bill and Melinda Gates pour thousands into unconventional health research

May 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 5 (ANI): Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has thrown a lifeline to number of projects like creating an anti-viral tomato, a flu-resistant chicken and a magnet that can detect malaria, awarding 81 grants of one lakh dollar each in a bid to support innovative, unconventional global health research.

The five-year health research grants are designed to encourage scientists to pursue bold ideas that could lead to breakthroughs, focusing on ways to prevent and treat infectious diseases, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrhoeal diseases.
Among the grant recipients is Eric Lam at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who is exploring tomatoes as an antiviral drug delivery system, The Telegraph reported.

Three British scientific teams, pursuing novel approaches to preventing and treating infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and pneumonia, have been chosen.

One team, led by researchers at the University of Exeter in Devon, England, will seek to build an inexpensive instrument to diagnose malaria by using magnets to detect the waste products of the malaria parasite in human blood.

Scientists from Royal Holloway University, London, are attempting to compile a library of all possible mutations of HIV with the ultimate goal of a vaccine that can protect against many variant forms of the virus.

Each grant recipient will also get the chance of follow-on grants of one million dollar if their projects show success.

Applicants were selected from more than 3,000 proposals, with all levels of scientists represented – from veteran researchers to postgraduates – and a range of disciplines, such as neurobiology, immunology and polymer science. (ANI)

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Mosquito parasite could combat dengue fever

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 1 (ANI): Dengue fever is a viral disease blighting many of the world’s tropical regions. Now, a group of researchers has made a major finding which may help fight the terrible disease.

Carried by mosquitoes, such as Aedes aegypti, 40 percent of the world’s population is believed to be at risk from the infection. What is more, previous exposure to other strains of the fever does not confer protection. In fact, subsequent infections are significantly worse, and can result in fatal dengue haemorrhagic fever.

The lack of a functioning vaccine forced Scott O’Neill and Elizabeth McGraw to look for a more creative form of defence. Knowing that a parasite, Wolbachia pipientis, shortens the lifespan of host insects and could restrict dengue fever transmission by killing the insects before they can pass the infection on, O’Neill and his team successfully infected Ae. aegypti with a strain of the Wolbachia bacterium and shortened the mosquitoes’ lifespan.

But before insects carrying the bacterium can be released into the environment, the O’Neill and McGraw teams have to convince international governments that mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia parasite could successfully limit transmission of the virus.
cGraw and O’Neill had to find out how the bacterium affects the mosquito’s physiology and behaviour and published their results in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Knowing that Wolbachia slows down some insects’ activity and speeds up others, the team decided to test how the parasite affects Ae. aegypti as they age and the infection takes hold. Working with uninfected and infected mosquitoes produced by Conor McMeniman, Oliver Evans and Eric Caragata used a system designed by Craig Williams to film the activities of male and female mosquitoes as they aged to find how the bacteria affected the insects’ activity levels.

According to McGraw, the experiments generated a huge amount of video data, so Evans teamed up with Megan Woolfit and David Green to pipe the data to a cluster of workstations to track the insects’ movements and analyse their activity levels.

After a year of experimental design, data collection and analysis, it was clear that the infected mosquitoes were more active than the uninfected insects. Most surprisingly, as the mosquitoes aged and the infection took hold, it did not increase their activity levels further.

Having found that the insects became more active in response to their bacterial lodgers, Craig Franklin joined the team to help measure the insects’ CO2 production to find how their metabolic rates respond to the parasite. Again, the insects’ metabolic rates were higher than those of the uninfected mosquitoes.

As to why the infected insects are more active than the uninfected insects, McGraw says there are three possible explanations; the insects are living fast and dying young; the insects are hungrier and consume more energy in their constant search for food; or the bacteria somehow affect the insects’ tissues to change their behaviour and increase their metabolic rate. McGraw suspects that the last explanation is the most likely. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: bacterium, craig williams, david green, Dengue fever, dengue haemorrhagic fever, elizabeth mcgraw, female mosquitoes, host insects, international governments, journal of experimental biology, lifespan, mcmeniman, mosquito, Mosquito Dengue, mosquitoes, O Neill, oliver evans, parasite, tropical regions, video data, Viral Disease

Revolutionary blood test to fight malaria

May 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 29 (ANI): A simple blood test can offer valuable support to healthcare in the fight against malaria, scientists at Karolinska Institute have found.

According to their study, the rapid diagnostic test (RDT) for malaria infection could help ensure that a greater number of patients receive the right treatment at no extra cost for the healthcare services.

“Since the existing test methods are too complicated and expensive for most primary health care clinics in Africa people are prescribed malaria treatment based on presence of fever only”, says Dr Anders Bjorkman, who led the study at Karolinska Institutet s research centre in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

“With an improved diagnostic tool, treatment can be targeted to patients with confirmed malaria infection,” Bjorkman added.

Malaria RDT is a relatively new diagnostic method, which measures the presence of a protein produced by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum in a sample of blood taken from the finger. The test requires no advanced laboratory equipment or training, and is already in clinical use.

The study is the first broad-front evaluation of the test in clinical operation. It involved four clinics on Zanzibar and data from 1,887 adults and children who all had fever within 48 hours prior to enrolment in the study.

The subjects were divided into two groups, one that was given a regular medical examination and diagnosed on the basis of symptoms only, and one that was also tested with RDT.

All patients who were diagnosed with malaria, regardless of method, were prescribed artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), a treatment based on a Chinese plant called Artemisia annua.

When the patients were followed up two weeks after treatment, it was observed that significantly fewer patients who had been tested with RDT received ACT treatment: 36 per cent, as opposed to 85 per cent of the control (non-RDT) group.

However, more antibiotics were prescribed for the RDT group. The number of patient revisits made on account of the perceived ineffectiveness of ACT was also lower in the RDT group.

“This might well prove a minor revolution in the treatment of malaria in the poor countries that are most severely affected. It also means that we’ll get a better picture of the spread of the disease, which will make it possible to develop new, improved control strategies,” said Bjorkman.

The study is published in the journal PLoS Medicine. (ANI)

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Pak Army is a self-destructing force: Newsweek

April 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr.26 (ANI): As the Taliban continues to advance and establish its writ in the newer areas of the country, the Pakistan Army has mysteriously failed to offer any resistance, thus compelling the United States to believe that they lack ability and capability and that they are a self-destructing force.

Perturbed by the Pakistan military’s meek response to the crisis, the United States has two special bills ready to provide Pakistan billions of dollars as military aid. Both bills would set benchmarks that Pakistan has to meet in order to keep qualifying for U.S. economic and military assistance.

The US may be busy in chalking out plans to help Pakistan out from the current chaos by offering it huge financial assistance, but an article in the Newsweek stated that threat from religious extremists would never subside until the country restructures it dysfunctional government fundamentally.

The article says that Pakistan military diluted constitutional governance in Pakistan in several ways over the years. Repeated coups and successive military regimes have prevented democratic government from growing and establishing it self. The army is more or less a parasite which is being fed the polity of the country.

Furthermore, the report says that the Pakistan army in a wicked quest for “strategic depth” against India had promoted the radicalization of neighbouring Afghanistan, the plan has now back fired and the problem has spilled back into its own territory going out of control.

Now, there is only one way out for Pakistan to turn things around and save the country from being wiped out from its existence, that is to demilitarize Pakistani politics, the report concluded. (ANI)

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Malaria vaccine being developed in Delhi

April 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Apr 24 (ANI): Scientists are undertaking research to develop a vaccine for immunization against malaria. The vaccine is expected to reduce the severity of the disease.

The scientists at the international Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi are involved in the research on malaria for the past few years.

The scientists at the institute have tested almost 20 vaccines. One of them is showing good results.

The scientists believe the progress of the research of the vaccine depends on the phase one trial. If this goes on well, the scientists expect to develop a partially successful vaccine to reduce the severity of the disease in a few years.

“I think if everything goes well, we may have a partially successful working vaccine in the next five to ten years. If other efforts also go simultaneously and if there are several partially successful vaccines, they can be mixed together to get a much better vaccine. We are in the beginning of the malaria vaccine research,” said Dr. V.S Chauhan, director, ICGEB.

The vaccine for malaria will not work as other vaccines. The centre is developing a vaccine for infants initially. It will boost the immunity of children to fight against the disease.

“In this case, the initial aim would be just to immunize very young children, infants, in the areas where there is a lot of malaria and just boost their immunity artificially a little more. Children will still get malaria, but they will not die of the disease. In other words, the severity of the disease will be hugely reduced. So that they get exposure but they do not die. After two or three exposures, they themselves become immune to malaria infection,” added Dr. Chauhan.

The ICGEB has collaborated with industrial partners and is receiving funds from the government to carry on the research.

The research includes developing a vaccine, which prohibits the entry of the malaria parasite into the red blood cells.

“We are trying to focus on blocking the entry of the parasite into the red blood cells. If we are successful, then the parasite will not enter the red blood cells. Hopefully, it will not let the disease happen. So, we will still get the disease but the severity of the disease will go extremely down. So that way the death rate we are targeting is 0,” said Dr. S. Shams Yazdani, a scientist at the ICGEB laboratory.

Malaria is a vector borne infectious disease caused by a parasite called Plasmodium transmitted by infected mosquitoes. There is yet no completely successful vaccine for malaria. (ANI)

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Chemicals could kill most deadly malaria-causing parasite

April 23, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, April 23 (ANI): A team of British scientists has created chemicals that have the potential to kill the most deadly malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum – including those resistant to existing drugs.

Researchers at the University of Leeds say that the compounds work by preventing the enzyme dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) – essential to the growth of the parasite – from working, which results in its death.

“Without this enzyme, Plasmodium falciparum is unable to grow and therefore it dies. The inhibitors developed at Leeds bind to the DHODH enzyme in the parasite and stop it functioning, preventing the proliferation of the parasites, which live in red blood cells. In addition, our chemicals are equally effective against parasites that have developed resistance to drugs,” lead author Dr Glenn McConkey, from Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences, said.

“DHODH in humans is not an essential enzyme, so by concentrating our studies on it we can develop chemical inhibitors that have a negative impact on the parasite without any major side-effects to the human host. In effect we are exploiting a biological difference, and this will allow us to develop potent, selective inhibitors.

“Our chemicals are particularly exciting as they kill malaria parasites at low concentrations, something that is important for medicines as they are massively diluted on entering the bloodstream and, unlike many pharmaceutical products, we have a firm understanding of the molecular basis of their action. This project highlights the benefits of combining biological and chemistry disciplines,” McConkey added.

Dr McConkey said the next step is to develop a larger collection of potent inhibitors and to see how these chemicals work alongside commonly used treatments.

“The parasites responsible for malaria have been very effective at developing resistance to existing drugs and efforts to find replacements are often stymied by the rate of resistance. Therefore it is essential that new products work effectively in combination with those already on the market,” he said.

The research is published in the latest edition of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. (ANI)

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220 million dollar malaria drugs initiative launched in Oslo

April 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Oslo – Eleven mainly African countries are to be offered cheaper, more effective malaria drugs as part of a partnership between international agencies and governments, officials said Friday.

Benin, Cambodia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda are the first countries to take part of the programme – launched in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

Some 220 million dollars will be spent during the first two years to buy and distribute more effective anti-malaria drugs. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will manage the scheme.

Donors included UNITAID – an international mechanism to finance drugs against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, created by France and supported by Norway and 26 other nations – and Britain.

“Controlling malaria is a key component of the global effort to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015,” UNITAID board chairman Philippe Douste-Blazy said.

Around nine in 10 malaria cases worldwide occur in sub-Saharan Africa. Transmitted via mosquito bites malaria is estimated to kill more than 2,000 children every day.

Speakers at the launch included Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store, who said in addition to costing lives, malaria also costs “developing countries billions of dollars each year in lost economic output.”

“By controlling malaria, we can improve school attendance and productivity, open new areas to business and tourism and reduce health costs,” he said.

New drugs, known as artemisinin combination therapies or ACTs, were needed since the malaria parasite has developed resistance to old drugs like chloroquine, Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, head of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, said.

In addition to new drugs, there has been success in tackling malaria by distributing mosquito bed nets in malaria-affected areas, Coll-Seck said citing Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimababwe. (dpa)

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Attacking parasite may help deal with honeybee colony collapse

April 15, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 16 (ANI): By isolating the parasite behind honeybee colony depopulation syndrome, also known as colony collapse disorder in the USA, scientists have found a possible cure for the infection.

Spanish researchers isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honeybee colony depopulation syndrome, and found that it could be the only cause of the disease.

The researchers treated the infected surviving under-populated colonies with the antibiotic drug, flumagillin, and showed complete recovery of all infected colonies.

Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.

However, the molecular pathogenesis for most of these diseases is poorly understood, which in turn hampers the development of new ways to prevent and combat honeybee diseases.

However, this is the first time that this bug been identified as the primary cause in professional apiaries.

“Now that we know one strain of parasite that could be responsible, we can look for signs of infection and treat any infected colonies before the infection spreads,” said Dr Higes, principle researcher.

The finding could help prevent the continual decline in honeybee population, which has recently been seen in Europe and the USA.

The study has been published in the new journal from the Society for Applied Microbiology: Environmental Microbiology Reports. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: antibiotic drug, applied microbiology, collapse, colony collapse disorder, complete recovery, environmental microbiology, Fungi, honeybee, honeybee diseases, honeybee population, honeybees, microsporidia, molecular pathogenesis, new ways, parasite, parasites, pathogens, principle researcher, signs of infection, spanish researchers