Malaria

Jonathan KiddJennifer KoehlHeather LouchEdwin Wong

Penelope Worthington

Name means “bad air”- A life-threatening parasitic disease 40% of the world’s population is at risk 90% of the deaths due to Malaria occur in

Sub-Sahara Africa, mostly among young children.

Around 400-900 million people are affected At least 2.7 million deaths annually. It is one of the major public health concerns

Organism Malaria is caused by species of Plasmodium. The genus Plasmodium contains 172 species

only four species are known to infect humans. Plasmodium falciparum Plasmodium malariae Plasmodium ovale Plasmodium vivax

Plasmodium parasites are highly specific with female Anopheles mosquitoes

Investigating the Plasmodium organism through… comparison of mitochondrial sequences

of Plasmodium spp. to each other to bacteria to Phylum Apicomplexa

Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) BLASTx

comparison of life cycles of Eimeria vs. Plasmodium spp.

comparison of pathogenic vs. non-pathogenic species using bioinformatics

Investigating the Plasmodium organism through… a look at clinical malaria (symptoms of P.

falciparum vs. other spp.) a look at geographic distribution of

Plasmodium spp. bioinformatics of genome projects

1 complete (P. falciparum) 2 draft (P. yoelii, P. chabaudi) 5 in progress (P. vivax, P. knowlesi, P.

berghei, P. gallinaceum, P. reichenowi) a look at chromosomes to determine

synteny

Investigating Rodent hosts through. . .

comparison of Plasmodium spp. that infect rodents to each other

comparison of rodent geographic distribution to Plasmodium infection

comparison of parasite isoenzymes PDB structures of parasite isoenzymes wet lab: biochemical analysis of isoenzymes

use of rodents as model organisms for vaccine development

Anopheles mosquitoes as vectors what use is the vector genome sequence? what is the ecology of Anopheles? investigate the specificity of the vector as

related to individual Plasmodium spp. using sequence data

what is the vector geographic distribution with regards to Plasmodium infection?

what are eradication strategies, and implications on Plasmodium genome evolution?

Development of Malaria vaccines why are they so difficult to develop? what is relationship to Plasmodium lifecycle? what epitopes do the vaccines target & why? what are the model organisms for vaccine

development, and why? most new vaccines are recombinant. Why? can human vaccines work in other hosts? How

does this relate to the vaccine targets?

Malaria as a global problem (ethics) how does economic and cultural development

impact the incidence and/or severity of malaria? who pays for malaria?

money time effort

why should we be concerned if it's not in the U.S.?

vaccination programs New Chemotherapy

what are difficulties in implementing vaccination programs?

who determines who gets vaccinated? who gets vaccinated?

Conclusion Malaria is a global problem that lends

itself to a multilayered investigation with bioinformatics as a major component.

The wealth of materials and the ongoing sequencing process make it possible to continually expand the investigation to encompass increasingly sophisticated students.