New Lab-Engineered Fungus Fights Malaria

New Lab-Engineered Fungus Fights Malaria

by Andrew Jin

Lab-Engineered Fungus

Malaria is an infectious disease in humans that is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including much of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The disease results from the multiplication of malaria parasites in the red blood cells, and symptoms include fever and headache progressing to coma and death. Malaria is caused by several species of protozoans, single-celled organisms. Mosquitoes are the disease's "taxi service", as they carry the disease from person to person. Therefore, as Penn State University biologist Andrew Read said, "Good malaria control is about good insect control." That is what a U.S.-British team has been working on. They have engineered strains of a common fungus that can kill more than 90 percent of malaria parasites deep in the bodies of mosquitoes or other insects that carry them. This is a big breakthrough, because malaria has become a huge problem in Africa and Asia. The heavy use of pesticides in those areas has pressured the mosquitoes to evolve and develop resistance to the pesticides. The U.S.-British team found an unique solution through the tiny fungus Metarhizium anisopliae. The fungus infects mosquitoes, but takes too long to kill them, so the scientists added a few new genes to the DNA, to the the fungus into a "drug-producing factory". The fungus works by making a hole in the mosquito, and then producing malaria-killing chemicals. One strain of the Metarhizium anisopliae the scientists made cured malarial infections in 75 percent of the tested insects, and killed more than 90 percent of the pathogens in the rest. Although this discovery is still under testing to see whether it works under real world conditions, it is still very exciting. In 2008, an estimated 708,000-1,003,000 people died worldwide from malaria. This fungus may become a very effective tool in controlling the disease in poor areas such as Africa, and prevent the deaths of millions of young children. 

Citations:

Strain, Daniel. "Lab-engineered organism fights malaria ." ScienceNews.
     ScienceNews, 25 Feb. 2011. Web. 8 Mar. 2011. <http://sciencenews.org/
     view/generic/id/70311/title/Lab-engineered_organism_fights_malaria>.