Malaria

[Michaelangelica]

Arguably one of the worst diseases on the planet, in terms of death and human suffering. but we might be able to spray it with "Round Up':) as the parasite seems to be plant-like

-bizarre!

 

HERBICIDES AS A TREATMENT FOR MALARIA (Science Show: 21/04/2007)

Science Show - 21 April 2007 - Herbicides as a treatment for malaria

 

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Malaria is caused by a parasite which is injected into humans by mosquitos. Geoff McFadden is working on a treatment strategy based on the fact that malaria has plant-like features; it has genes similar to chloroplast genes. Malaria started its life hundreds of millions of years ago as a plant, and has since evolved into a parasite. Each chloroplast-like gene is a unique target for attack. Humans don't have these genes.

Herbicides are used to kill plants. So Geoff McFadden is looking at common herbicides as a treatment for malaria. The herbicides are then modified into a medicine form.

 

Show Transcript

[ronthepon]

Whoa! I had once read this.

 

Plant-like enzyme acts as key life cycle switch in malaria parasite

 

But lets hope they do get somewhere. For one thing, if it has genes similar to chloroplast genes, :) then I don't know how 'weedicides' will get anywhere, but this definitely means that drugs with little or no side effects can be produced.

 

It is possible that the drugs actually cannot be countered by the parasite by evolutionary methods, just because the treatment aims at the very fundamentals of the organism.

[maikeru]

Wowzers, I didn't learn anything like this in my classes. Wee-beastie plants. Who would've thought?! 500 genes sound like a good starting point for us to target to "weed out" malaria. :)

[Michaelangelica]

Whoa! I had once read this.

 

Plant-like enzyme acts as key life cycle switch in malaria parasite

 

But lets hope they do get somewhere.

That article is 3 years old! incredible that it is just sufacing again now.

Plant-like enzyme acts as key life cycle switch in malaria parasite

nächste Meldung

14.05.2004

An essential switch in the life cycle of the malaria parasite has been uncovered by researchers in England, Germany and Holland.

 

They have established that to infect mosquitoes that transmit malaria, the parasites depend on a type of molecule normally found in plants, which they have named Calcium-Dependent Protein Kinase 4 (CDPK4).

A Brisbane researcher has spent all his life developing a maleria vaccine. He has a working vaccine now which is in final? clinical trials with human patients.

Whatever happens the effect on world population and suffering will be stupendous. Perhaps the greatest medical discovery of our time.

[Michaelangelica]

A good detailed article on Malaria and what they are doing in taiwan to control it

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Malaria Eradication

 

Malaria is a shitty, piss-poor, easily-prevented, easily-treated, easily-eradicable disease that kills millions throughout the world every year.

 

Why?

 

Poverty.

 

Let’s talk about me (as usual) and malaria first. I’ve had it too many times to count – and, hey I’m still here! The very first time was 6 months after getting back to England from a year in China and 3 months in India. I spent two weeks with flu-like symptoms in a student house during the Easter holidays and “the flu” wasn’t clearing up so I eventually ... phoned Mum and Dad and said “I’m coming home”. I got home, they took one look at me, called the GP and I was sent to hospital.

Life with Leukaemia: Malaria Eradication

[Biomajor]

Also, carriers of Sickle Cell Anemia (only carrier, not actually infected) are immune to Malaria. Most (but not all) of Africans (native Africans) are Sickle Cell carriers and thus immune to Malaria.

[Michaelangelica]

Sea Cucumber Protein Used To Inhibit Development Of Malaria Parasite

 

 

ScienceDaily (Jan. 3, 2008) — Scientists have genetically engineered a mosquito to release a sea-cucumber protein into its gut which impairs the development of malaria parasites, according to new research. Researchers say this development is a step towards developing future methods of preventing the transmission of malaria.

. . .

The international team fused part of the sea cucumber lectin gene with part of a mosquito gene so that the mosquito would release lectin into its gut during feeding. The released lectin is toxic to the ookinete and therefore kills the parasite in the mosquito's stomach.

 

In laboratory tests the research team showed that introducing lectin to the mosquito's gut in this way significantly impaired the development of malaria parasites inside the mosquito, potentially preventing transmission to other people. Early indications suggest that this sea cucumber protein could be effective on more than one of the four different parasites that can cause malaria in humans.

 

Professor Bob Sinden from Imperial College London's Department of Life Sciences, one of the authors on the paper said: "These results are very promising and show that genetically engineering mosquitoes in this way has a clear impact on the parasites' ability to multiply inside the mosquito host."

Sea Cucumber Protein Used To Inhibit Development Of Malaria Parasite

[Michaelangelica]

Malaria Awareness Day was designated to be April 25 by President George W. Bush in 2007. In his proclamation, President Bush called on Americans to join in on the goal to eradicate malaria on the African continent.

Wiki

Malaria Awareness Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am trying to find a list of famous&/or historical people who died of Malaria.

i don't think anyone has compiled it yet.

 

Interesting "in progress" section of Wiki

Talk:Malaria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Has anyone ever contributed?

 

An anti-maleria group

AMREF - What we do - PIA

[InfiniteNow]

I am trying to find a list of famous&/or historical people who died of Malaria.

i don't think anyone has compiled it yet

I found this link on a quick search. It may be of interest to you:

 

 

 

http://www.malariasite.com/malaria/history_victims.htm

 

Malaria has killed millions and many more have suffered from it. During the past 100 years, nearly 150 million to 300 million people would have died from the effects of malaria, accounting for 2-5% of all deaths. In the early part of the century, malaria probably accounted for 10% of global deaths to malaria and in India it probably accounted for over half. Here is a list of some of the more famous human beings who died or suffered from malaria.

 

 

Names listed at the link, and the sources listed at the bottom of the page may give you a bit of a buzz too. :fly:

 

:cup:

[Michaelangelica]

I found this link on a quick search. It may be of interest to you:

 

 

 

http://www.malariasite.com/malaria/history_victims.htm

 

 

 

 

Names listed at the link, and the sources listed at the bottom of the page may give you a bit of a buzz too. :)

 

:applause:

Just what I was trying to find, thanks.

You can now have my Crown as being the Hypography "Finder-in-Residence"

(I now get private mail asking me to find things!):eplane:

 

I did find this at wiki.

A bit like the Darwin Awards and almost, completely off topic

List of unusual deaths - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Is life too short for the list of URLs at the bottom?

[omedetou_dana]

Malaria kills over a million people around the world each year. Children in Africa suffer the heaviest - they account for 75% of all global deaths from malaria. Every thirty seconds a child dies of the disease. Mothers are also at risk: in endemic areas, malaria is responsible directly or indirectly for 30% of maternal mortality.

 

 

 

Malaria is preventable

 

Despite some promising developments, an effective vaccine is still years away. But there are other ways of battling this killer. Sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets can save lives. Houses can be sprayed with insecticides. (How to buy the insecticides when in Africa a person lives with 1 $ /day ?)

[omedetou_dana]

if you want to help serch for : Medecins Sans Frontieres ( Doctors without borders ) ; they need volunteers .

[Michaelangelica]

Malaria is preventable

 

Despite some promising developments, an effective vaccine is still years away. But there are other ways of battling this killer. Sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets can save lives. Houses can be sprayed with insecticides. (How to buy the insecticides when in Africa a person lives with 1 $ /day ?)

In terms of mortality, I think it beats everything else in a lay-down mozaire.(sp?)

 

Can pesticides be grown?

I'm Quite happy to go to Africa with some seeds.

Much natural pyrethum is grown in Africa I am told.

 

Malaria can be reduced but I don't think prevented with DDT soaked mossie nets + the mossies quickly get immune to it.

You can't walk around all day in a net.

How come you need the pesticide as well as the net?

Wouldn't the net be sufficient?

 

A vaccine is in clinical trials here (Brisbane) at the moment.

[Michaelangelica]

Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise in Small Trial

 

THURSDAY, Jan. 24 (HealthDay News) -- A new malaria vaccine looked strong in a small trial conducted in Mali by a team of international researchers.

Latest Prevention & Wellness News

The vaccine -- designed to prevent the malaria parasite from entering blood cells -- was safe and provoked strong immune responses (up to a sixfold increase in vaccine-specific antibodies) in the 40 adults who received it, according to the 17-member research team, based at the Malaria Research and Training Center at the University of Bamako.

 

The volunteers were given three injections of full or half doses of the vaccine, with one month between each injection. The injections began in late December 2004, at the end of the malaria season in the rural town of Bandiagara in northeast Mali.

 

The study was published in the current issue of PLoS ONE.

 

This trial -- the first test of the vaccine in a malaria-endemic country -- was supported by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which also helps fund the Malaria Research and Training Center. The team is now conducting a trial of the vaccine in 400 Malian children, aged 1 to 6.

Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise in Small Trial - Disease Prevention and Wellness Information to Improve Your Health on MedicineNet.com

[Michaelangelica]

I have just been reading 1491

It seems there is an anti-parasitic immune system; and an anti-bacterial/virus system

Anti-parasite Drug May Provide New Way To Attack HIV

 

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2008) — A drug already used to treat parasitic infections, and once looked at for cancer, also attacks the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a new and powerful way, according to new research.

 

 

Past research has established that HIV has "learned" to hide out in certain human cells where it is safe from the body's counterattack, cells that come to serve as viral reservoirs.

Operating from these havens, the virus slowly builds its numbers over more than a decade until it finally becomes capable of dismantling human immune defenses. In the end stages, this process leaves patients vulnerable to the opportunistic infections of AIDS.

The newly published work* expla. . . .

Anti-parasite Drug May Provide New Way To Attack HIV

 

Malaria Vaccine Trials Begin Using 'Chimpanzee Virus'

 

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2008) — Trials are underway for a new vaccine to combat the most deadly form of malaria. For the first time ever, researchers will use a virus found in chimpanzees to boost the efficacy of the vaccine.

 

Malaria Vaccine Trials Begin Using 'Chimpanzee Virus'

[Michaelangelica]

Quinine was first isolated from Peruvian Bark (aka: Chinchona, Quina) in 1820. It took until the early 1900's for it to really become a world-wide popular drug for malaria. It was a wonderful drug for a while. It cured malaria and took the danger out of this disease.

 

It really only lasted as a wonder drug for malaria for about 50 years. Malaria became quinine-resistant and quinine may not work at all today. The malaria germ adapted to quinine.

 

Today, it is more likely that you will be prescribed quinine if you have leg cramps. If you get malaria, they will probably look at other drug options.

 

The interesting thing about this is that Peruvian Bark works as good today as it did 1000 years ago. There are no strains of malaria resistant to Peruvian Bark, only to the isolated quinine.

The Side-Effect Challenge: Whole Plant Medicines Vs. Drug Counterparts

The latest drug treatment also comes from a Chinese Artemesia (Sweet Annie).

Could these be grown in malaria- prone areas?

A lot cheaper than Western drugs or Indian adulterated ones?

[mynah]

Seems that instead of drinking gin and tonic (which contains quinine), we should now down absinth...

 

Artemisia absinthium