Human malarial immunity and assessment of emerging artemisinin resistance

Resistance to antimalarial drugs is a major global threat for malaria treatment, control and elimination. Assessment of the spread of resistance is severely impeded by the presence of host immunity. These findings will facilitate the correct assessment of the global spread of antimalarial resistance. The team will use two methods to gain this understanding; the first is a genetic screen that will create mutations in the parasite using jumping DNA (called transposons) that will break down the control mechanism behind antigenic variation. Identifying the mutated genes will show us which genes organize antigenic variation in normal parasites. The second approach is to genetically knockout parasite genes that are related to the genes that govern epigenetic mechanisms in other, better understood organisms like humans and yeast. We will test the effect of these targeted gene deletions to discover which of these genes are involved in regulating antigenic variation. The insights gained from these discoveries will improve our understanding of how the malaria parasite evades our immune system. A better understanding of this immune evasion may help us to understand how to build better vaccines against malaria.

Project details

Drug Resistance
Immunology

Jan 2014 — Dec 2016

$249,567

Australia