Scientists from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) identify structure of key malaria protein
Using technology available at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron, SickKids scientists have taken an important step forward on the path to finding effective biomedical interventions to halt the spread of malaria, a disease that affected an estimated 216 million people worldwide in 2016 alone.
Jean-Philippe Julien, a scientist in the Molecular Medicine program at SickKids, and his colleagues focused on a molecule known to be essential for the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum to go through the sexual stages of its lifecycle. Disrupting that stage of the lifecycle has the potential to reduce infections and deaths from malaria because parasite transmission between humans would be blocked by inhibiting parasite development in the Anopheles mosquito.
“The protein we looked at was identified several years ago as an important target for malaria parasite biology,” says Julien, who is also a Canada Research Chair in Structural Immunology and an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Immunology at the University of Toronto. “The field has tried for over a decade to clarify its structure in order to guide the development of biomedical interventions that can curb the spread of malaria.”
>Read more on the Canadian Light Source website
Image: One of the structures of the malaria protein (orange) being recognized by the humanized blocking antibody (green and blue).