Functional characterisation of a Maurer's cleft protein involved in adhesion of malaria-infected red blood cells

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/284243

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

Malaria is a serious disease that affects half of the world's population and frequently kills humans after a bout of high fever and coma. Many of those who die are young children who live in areas of the world where health care is very poor. The effectiveness of drugs that we currently have available to prevent or treat malaria is rapidly reducing and there is no vaccine available to prevent people from catching the disease. Our research is important because in order to make better medicines for malaria we have to get to know more about how the malaria parasite makes people sick. The most vicious form of malaria is caused by a tiny parasite called Plasmodium falciparum that lives inside the red blood cells in our bodies. As these minute parasites grow, they make a lot of major changes to the red blood cells and as a result they become very stiff and sticky. This is very bad for the infected person because instead of flowing around the body like normal red blood cells, the infected cells become trapped in small veins and can no longer do their normal job. The ability of the parasite to redecorate red blood cells and make them stiff and sticky is what makes this type of malaria so dangerous, particularly when red cells get stuck in the brain. The research that we will do here will help us to understand the ways in which the malaria parasite sends out these sticky substances to the walls of red blood cells. Eventually, this will help us to find ways to stop the red blood cells from becoming sticky and prevent so many people from becoming very sick and dying with malaria.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2004

End Date: 01-01-2004

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $160,500.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Humoural immunology and immunochemistry

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Adhesion mechanisms | Anaemia | Cerebral malaria | Infectious diseases | Malaria | Parasitology | Pathogenesis | Pathogenic mechanisms | Plasmodium falciparum malaria

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