Stopping Malaria By Immunizing Mosquitoes 100
RedEaredSlider writes "Millions of people in the tropics suffer from malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that has been difficult to treat and which costs many developing countries millions of dollars per year in lost productivity. Up to now, efforts at controlling it have focused on attacking the parasites that cause it, keeping mosquitoes from biting, or killing the insects. But at Johns Hopkins University, Rhoel Dinglasan, an entomologist and biologist, decided to try another tack: immunizing mosquitoes. When a mosquito bites an infected human, it takes up some of the gametocytes. They aren't dangerous to people at that stage. Since plasmodium is vulnerable there, that is the point Dinglasan chose to attack. A mosquito's gut has certain receptor molecules in it that the plasmodium can bind to. Dinglasan asked what would happen if the parasite couldn't 'see' them, which would happen if another molecule, some antigen, were binding to those receptors."
Just brilliant (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously. Einstein didn't create the question behind the theory of relativity: he simply turned an existing question on its head. (The question others couldn't answer was why the speed of light always seemed to be constant regardless of the velocity of the observer, and Einstein "simply" started with the proposition that c is always constant and derived Special Relativity from there.)
This is another beautiful example of turning a problem on it's head. It gives me faith in the infinite potential of science to make new discoveries.
Population impact? (Score:3, Interesting)
As much as I appreciate the diminishment of death and suffering when a disease like malaria can be neutralized, I wonder if anyone has taken into account the population growth question that results and what the impact on poor regions like Africa that suffer most of the deaths?
It's "only" 800,000 some deaths per year, but given that they are mostly among children this has the potential to equal millions more people if even a relatively small portion (25%?) go on to produce a family with 4-6 offspring.
Re:Wait so... (Score:3, Interesting)
The mosquitoes are immunized by biting the humans.
The next question was how to get the mosquitoes to pick up the antigen. Since it is easier to get people to take injections than it is to find mosquitoes, the answer was to allow people to transmit it to mosquitoes when they bite. The antibody itself doesn't protect against malaria, but when a mosquito bites a treated person, the parasite can no longer use the mosquito's gut to reproduce.
One solution already exists (Score:3, Interesting)
Malaria is only transferred by some species of mosquito. One thing governments in affected regions have been doing is to release mosquitoes from species that can out-compete the malaria-carrying species. These are typically larger and bite harder, but it is still better than being infected by malaria. I visited one such region recently, and while the larger mosquitoes are more frightening, they are still nothing compared to the horror that is tsetse flies.