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Malaria in the News

Fifth PSMWG Meeting

25.01.2010

Read this issue and previous issues online.

Announcements / Press Releases

Procurement and Supply Chain Management Working Group (PSMWG) Meeting [RBM] — (English)
Representatives from more than 40 partner organisations and endemic countries gathered today for the 5th PSM Working Group meeting of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM)...

RBM Partners Meet to Define the Way Forward in Malaria Vector Control [RBM] — (English)
The RBM working group for Scalable Malaria Vector Control (WIN) is being resurrected and reconstituted as the RBM Vector Control Working Group. We are planning a first open meeting in February 8-9, 2010 in Basel (Switzerland). Details of the venue and proposed agenda will be announced very shortly....

GSK announces ‘open innovation’ strategy to help deliver new and better medicines for people living in the world’s poorest countries [GSK] — (English)
'Open Lab' established with $8m seed funding for new research
- 13,500 malaria compounds to be made freely available
- New collaborations to share intellectual property for neglected tropical diseases
- Pledge to create sustainable pricing model for world’s most advanced malaria candidate vaccine
- GSK African Malaria Partnership awards four new grants worth $2.5m...

Malaria Medical Coordinator - Liberia [MENTOR] — (English)
Start Date: February 15, 2009 (12 month contract, renewable)...

Malaria Technical Director - Eastern Chad [MENTOR] — (English)
Start Date: January 5, 2010; Duration: 6 months...

MENTOR Mombasa Workshop postponed [MENTOR] — (English)
5 Day Workshops: Malaria Control in Humanitarian Crises; Mombasa, Kenya : 24 th - 28th, May 2010...

25.01.2010

24.01.2010

23.01.2010

22.01.2010

21.01.2010

20.01.2010 and previous

Articles requiring subscription

In Vivo Parasitological Measures of Artemisinin Susceptibility [The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2010;201:570–579] — (English)
The result of the malaria blood smear on day 3 (72 h) was a good predictor of subsequent treatment failure and provides a simple screening measure for artemisinin resistance. Artemisinin resistance is highly unlikely if the proportion of patients with parasite densities...

Pharmacokinetics of chloroquine and mono-desethylchloroquine in pregnancy [Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. doi:10.1128/AAC.01269-09] — (English)
In order to determine the pharmacokinetic disposition of chloroquine (CQ) and its active metabolite, desethylchloroquine (DECQ) when administered as intermittent presumptive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) for malaria, 30 Papua New Guinean women in the second or third trimester of pregnancy and 30 age-matched non-pregnant women were administered three daily doses of 450 mg CQ (8.5 mg/kg/day) in addition to a single dose of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine...

Reversal Agent and Linker Variants of Reversed Chloroquines: Activities against Plasmodium falciparum [J Med Chem. 2010 Jan 28;53(2):916-9] — (English)
We have shown that “reversed chloroquine molecules” constructed from chloroquine-like and resistance “reversal-agent”-like cores can be powerful drugs against malaria...

Active Malaria Morbidity Management Has Limited Impact on Height Status of Preschool Senegalese Children [J. Nutr. (January 20, 2010). doi:10.3945/jn.109.114223] — (English)
Compared with the usually slow progression of height status related to better living conditions, it seems very likely that the rapid improvement observed among IPT study children resulted from the trial. These findings suggest that improved health services provided by the trial may also have benefited children not included living in study villages...

Immunopathology and Dexamethasone Therapy in a New Model for Malaria-Associated Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome [Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 2010, doi:10.1164/rccm.200905-0786OC] — (English)
The finding that high doses of dexamethasone cured MA-ARDS suggests that it might be more effective against MA-ARDS than it was in the clinical trials for cerebral malaria...

PfPI3K, a Phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase from Plasmodium falciparum, is exported to the host erythrocyte and is involved in hemoglobin trafficking [Blood. 2010 Jan 21] — (English)
Our present studies suggest that PfPI3K, a novel Phosphatidyl-inositol-3-kinase (PI3K) in Plasmodium falciparum, is exported to the host erythrocyte by the parasite in an active form. PfPI3K is a versatile enzyme as it can generate various 3'-phosphorylated PIPs...

Anti-peptide antibodies differentiate between Plasmodial lactate dehydrogenases [Peptides. 2010 Jan 18 doi:10.1016/j.peptides.2010.01.002] — (English)
The study supports an anti-peptide antibody approach to the development of diagnostic reagents...

Modulation of cerebral malaria by fasudil and other immune-modifying compounds [Exp Parasitol. 2010 Jan 18 doi:10.1016/j.exppara.2010.01.005] — (English)
Our results support the hypothesis that an immunomodulator efficient in preventing CM should be administered together with anti-plasmodial drugs to prevent severe malaria disease; curcumin and fasudil should be further investigated to determine efficiency and feasibility of treatment...

Sentinel surveillance system for early outbreak detection in Madagascar [BMC Public Health 2010, 10:31doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-31] — (English)
The sentinel surveillance system represents the first nationwide real-time-like surveillance system ever established in Madagascar. Our findings should encourage other African countries to develop their own syndromic surveillance systems. Prompt detection of an outbreak of infectious disease may lead to control measures that limit its impact and help prevent future outbreaks...

Dual labeling with a far red probe permits analysis of growth and oxidative stress in P. falciparum-infected erythrocytes [Cytometry Part A, Published Online: 20 Jan 2010] — (English)
We show that E-64 prevents schizont rupture but also causes delayed lethal effects when ring stage cultures are exposed to the drug. We also examined cultures of parasites in erythrocytes harboring 98% catalase inactivation and found no effect on growth and only a modest increase in DCF oxidation...

The role of platelets in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria [Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, Volume 67, Number 4 / February, 2010] — (English)
There is a strong association between thrombocytopenia and outcome in malaria, suggesting a role for platelets in the pathogenesis of malaria. This thrombocytopenia is likely due to platelet activation possibly through an interaction between PfEMP1 on plasmodium and CD36 on platelets. Platelet activation by plasmodium has two potential consequences. It can lead to the formation of micro-aggregates of infected red blood cells and platelets which can occlude blood vessels and it also leads to binding to and activation of the endothelium...

PlasmoPredict: a gene function prediction website for Plasmodium falciparum [Trends Parasitol. 2010 Jan 18 doi:10.1016/j.pt.2009.12.004] — (English)
The genome sequence of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum was published in 2002 and revealed that approximately 60% of its genes could not be assigned a function. Eight years later the majority of P. falciparum proteins are still of unknown function. We therefore present PlasmoPredict, an easy-to-use online gene function prediction tool that integrates a wide range of functional genomics data for P. falciparum to aid in the annotation of these genes...

Subpatent infection with Nucleoside Transporter 1-deficient Plasmodium blood stage parasites confers sterile protection against lethal malaria in mice [Cellular Microbiology, Published Online: 20 Jan 2010] — (English)
We show that cellular and humoral immune responses are both essential for sterile protection. The study demonstrates that genetic manipulation provides a platform for the designed, complete attenuation of malaria parasite blood stages and suggests testing the safety and efficacy of P. falciparumNT1 knockout strains in humans...

Identification of inhibitors of Plasmodium falciparum phosphoethanolamine methyltransferase using an enzyme-coupled transmethylation assay [BMC Biochemistry 2010, 11:4doi:10.1186/1471-2091-11-4] — (English)
The identification of amodiaquine as an inhibitor of PfPMT in vitro and in yeast, and the biophysical evidence for the specific interaction of the compound with the enzyme will set the stage for the development of analogs of this drug that specifically inhibit this enzyme and possibly other PMTs...

Structure and function of a G-actin sequestering protein with a vital role in malaria oocyst development inside the mosquito vector [J Biol Chem. 2010 Jan 18] — (English)
This study exemplifies how Plasmodium reverse genetics combined with biochemical and structural analyses of orthologous proteins can offer a fast track toward systematic gene characterization in apicomplexan parasites...

Malaria hemozoin modulates susceptibility of immature monocyte-derived dendritic cells to HIV-1 infection by inducing a mature-like phenotype [Cellular Microbiology, Online: 13 Jan 2010] — (English)
We report here that HZ promotes transmission of HIV-1 by immature monocyte-derived DCs (iMDDCs). Moreover, we noted that in the presence of HZ, iMDDCs were less permissive to productive HIV-1 infection. The HZ-dependent modulation of the interaction between iMDDCs and HIV-1 seems to be partly due to a decreased expression of CCR5 and also to the induction of a more mature phenotype as proven by microscopy and flow cytometry analyses. Therefore, exposure of iMDDCs to malaria pigments provokes their maturation rendering them more potent to trans-infect CD4+ T cells with HIV-1...

Articles included in 'Malaria in the News' do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership or any of its individual partners.