Sydney and UK researchers gang up on malaria

Malaria is a killer. Around 800,000 people each year succumb to the parasitic infection. Yet for some, malaria is a significantly milder illness.

Now a collaborative effort between two Sydney-based universities and one in the United Kingdom is determined to find out why some people with malaria develop severe symptoms with a high risk of death while others experience milder illness.

Professor Alastair Craig from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is conducting the study along with Professor Georges Grau's laboratory at the University of Sydney and the ithree Institute headed by Professor Ian Charles.

“Malaria infection kills and affects millions of people worldwide, with the greatest share of this impact on countries that can ill afford the costs associated with treatment," said Charles.

“The reasons for this are complex, but are thought to involve the ability of human red blood cells, infected with the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, to bind to cells lining the small blood vessels in the human host.

“This can lead to vessel blockage, which was thought at one time to be the only mechanism of disease but further work has shown that this interaction is an active process, inducing a range of responses in the human host, some protective but some causing disease.

“The project will look at changes at the sub-cellular level when different host cells and malaria parasites are brought into contact with each other, in order to identify the critical pathways contributing to disease.

“By understanding these, the research will provide a better idea how severe illness is caused and can help design new therapies that target these pathways whilst leaving the normal protective mechanisms unaffected.”

The researchers plan to use the Microbial Imaging Facility’s state-of-the-art DeltaVision, which is managed by Associate Professor Cynthia Whitchurch and Dr Lynne Turnbull.

The work is funded as part of the Australia – Europe Malaria Research Collaboration, OzEMalar.