Malaria breakthrough for Australian researchers
Updated
Australian researchers has discovered how the malaria parasite is able to invade human cells.
Presenter: David Mark
Speaker: Professor Alan Cowman, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
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MARK: The malaria parasite kills more than one million people a year so no wonder professor Alan Cowman is excited about his discovery that's been published today in the journal Nature.
COWMAN: I think this is an important discovery and one that we believe will end up with new anti-malarial drugs.
MARK: The head of the Division of Infection Immunity at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne and his team have unlocked the mystery of how the malaria parasite survives inside humans. It does it by sending out hundreds of so-called effector proteins into the red blood cells it's invading.
COWMAN: It's a bit like buying an old house that's about to fall down and then sending hundreds of carpenters to renovate it and fix it up so that you can live in there and survive and hide. The puzzle has been how does the parasite know which proteins to send out there or which carpenters to send out there to the red blood cell and which to keep inside?
MARK: The answer is another protein called plasmepsin V (plasmepsin five).
COWMAN: So it's a bit like an usher in a theatre where there's lots of proteins or people rushing past and only those with a particular ticket that has the right barcode are allowed into the theatre so that they can renovate the red blood cell in the way that the parasite requires.
MARK: Professor Cowman believes plasmepsin V is the Achilles heel of malaria. He's hoping to help develop a new type of anti-malarial drug that targets the protein.
COWMAN: It's clear now that there's one protein that decides that all of these proteins are to be exported. So if you inhibit this particular protein, you inhibit the export of all of those hundreds of proteins that are absolutely required so it's essentially a weak link that allows you to start to target this protein to block all of these effector proteins.
MARK: So what next?
COWMAN: Next, a number of different things. One is to develop compounds that inhibit it much better than the ones we've currently got and then to start to try and develop those as anti-malarial drugs.
MARK: Malaria kills about one million people a year. Do you believe there will be a time when this disease is eradicated?
COWMAN: That's a hard question. I think the answer's yes but I think it's a long way down the track. With the political will to eradicate malaria I think it will be possible but I think it will take a long time.
