Melbourne researchers map parasite-human malaria contact for first time

MELBOURNE researchers are a step closer to developing the first vaccine against the world’s most widespread malaria parasite, after uncovering how it invades human blood cells.

A team from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research solved the mystery of how the deadly parasite Plasmodium vivax latches on to a receptor on the surface of human blood cells. James Gathany/CDC via AP.

MELBOURNE researchers are in the race to develop the first vaccine against the world’s most widespread malaria parasite, after uncovering how it invades human blood cells.

The findings come as more than 1000 international scientists and government leaders from 69 countries prepare to gather in Melbourne next week for the Malaria World Congress, where they will discuss the latest breakthroughs and challenges in the preventable mosquito-borne disease that infects 216 million and kills more than 440,000 people each year.

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Earlier this year a team from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, led by Associate Professor Wai-Hong Tham, solved the mystery of how the deadly parasite Plasmodium vivax latches on to a receptor on the surface of human blood cells.

Melbourne researchers are in the race to develop the first vaccine against the world’s most widespread malaria parasite.

Vivax is one of four types of malaria parasite that infect humans, affecting more than 16 million people across Asia, South America and the Pacific annually.

The WEHI team has taken a significant step further, using a sophisticated microscope technique called cryogenic electron microscopy — a Nobel prize-winning imaging tool to look into the heart of cells — to see in more detail how the parasite and blood cell interact. The findings were published in the prestige journal Nature.

Associate Prof Tham said knowing the minute details of this interaction at the atomic level would allow them to design drugs to hijack the parasite’s ability to infect blood.

“Before now we could only see the parasite side, but now we have an image of what is also happening on the human side of this connection,” she said.

“That’s the big leap in the discovery. We know the space they’re interacting in, and that’s the space we can design a drug — an antibody — to inhibit that interaction.

“We make the parasite protein, inject that into humans as a vaccine and the human immune system creates antibodies to that surface to block vivax’s infection.”

Malaria expert and University of Melbourne Emeritus Professor Graham Brown, who will chair sessions at next week’s conference, said given there were no malaria vaccines commercially available, the conference would learn about promising candidates.

“Every year we’re hearing about a new country that has got rid of malaria,” Prof Brown said. “Vaccines are only partially effective, we want to get better ones.”

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