Bulletin

Issue: July 2004

News

Grant to develop new malaria test

La Trobe University and the international diagnostics company, PANBIO, have received a Development Grant from the National Health & Medical Research Council for malaria research.

The grant is to develop novel reagents to diagnose and differentiate the malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. These reagents are being developed for potential use in rapid new diagnostic tests, called 'Point-of-Care', one of the fastest growing areas of medical diagnostics in the world today.

PANBIO's Point-of-Care (POC) diagnostic testing enables clinicians to perform rapid diagnostic assays, thereby increasing the speed of diagnosis and the level of service to patients.

La Trobe Professor of Biochemistry, Leann Tilley, the Chief Investigator on the project, said the research so far had led to the discovery of proteins within the malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, that have potential to allow the development of novel species-specific diagnostic reagents.

Professor Stuart Hazell, Vice-President, Research and Development at PANBIO, said PANBIO was pleased to be working with Dr Tilley on the project. 'The ability to quickly detect and differentiate Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax is an important challenge within medical diagnostics,' he said.

'We believe Professor Tilley and team members such as Dr Akin Adisa have made a number of important discoveries that have the potential to be quickly translated into improved diagnostic assays.'

'The $117,000 one-year grant will allow Professor Tilley's team to establish 'proof-of-principle' in the application of the discovery to diagnostic tests. Once this potential has been established, PANBIO will be looking to incorporate the reagents into a POC platform. This supports the on-going push by the company into the POC market,' Professor Hazell said.

Malaria remains an important infection affecting millions of people each year. Of the four species of malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax have the greatest impact on human health.

Plasmodium falciparum is the most virulent of the parasites and many strains are highly resistant to the most commonly used therapeutic agents. While Plasmodium falciparum is highly virulent it does not persist in the liver.

Plasmodium vivax is less virulent but persists in the liver. Thus treatment of Plasmodium vivax must have the ability to not only kill parasites in the blood, but must also clear the liver of infection. It is possible to be infected with both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax.

A number of diagnostic tests can detect the presence of unspecified Plasmodium species or of Plasmodium falciparum in particular, but a test that is positive for malaria parasites may indicate the presence of any of the four species, including Plasmodium falciparum. These tests cannot determine if a person has a co-infection with Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, nor can they indicate a specific infection with Plasmodium vivax.

Knowing the common antimicrobial resistance profiles within a region together with an ability to rapidly detect infection with Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax provides clinicians with important information enabling rapid therapeutic intervention.

NHMRC Development Grants are designed to bring together university researchers and industry to ensure the alignment of research objectives with the needs of the community and the market.

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