Scientist looking for ways to fight malaria

A Maltese scientist living in Australia, Kevin Saliba, is at the forefront of research that aims to combat malaria.

A team of researchers at the Australian National University's School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology are trying to find a chemical that kills the malaria parasite inside the body but is not dangerous to humans.

The focus of the research is pantothenol, a common ingredient found in many shampoos. Pantothenol resembles the B5 vitamin, which the parasite needs, and the parasite could be killed if it is tricked into taking pantothenol or a similar compound.

Malaria is estimated to kill around one million people every year, the majority of whom are children under the age of five. It is thought to infect a further 500 million people in some of the world's poorest countries.

Dr Saliba was born in Malta to Maltese parents. His parents moved to South Africa when he was 15, where he finished school and went to university. He has been living in Australia for almost nine years.

Contacted by The Times, he explained that pantothenol is not dangerous to humans, even at doses as high as 15 grammes a day.

"This is partly because humans are able to convert it into vitamin B5, also known as patothenic acid, which is an essential nutrient," he said.

Unfortunately, Dr Saliba said, vitamin B5 is the very one which the parasite needs, and the conversion destroys the anti-malarial activity of pantothenol.

"We are not suggesting that pantothenol can be used in humans as an anti-malarial, but similar substances that are not converted into the vitamin have potential as anti-malarial drugs," he said.

He explained that unlike humans, the malaria parasite is unable to convert pantothenol into vitamin B5. When pantothenol is provided to the parasite at high enough concentrations, this unintentionally takes the chemical instead of vitamin B5 and consequentially starves itself of the essential vitamin.

"We are hoping to find other compounds that kill the malaria parasite by interfering with its ability to take up and/or process vitamin B5," he said.

Dr Saliba pointed out that Christina Spry, a PhD student in the university's lab, had designed and synthesised a number of compounds that look like pantothenol and are as effective at killing the parasite.

A few weeks ago the researchers were awarded a grant from the Tropical Diseases Research branch of the World Health Organisation to help them develop an assay to screen as many compounds as possible with the aim of finding one that can kill the malaria parasite.

Malaria causes many symptoms of varying severity. Typical symptoms include fever, sweating, shaking chills, headaches, nausea and diarrhoea. He said more severe symptoms include enlarged spleen and liver, low blood sugar, kidney and liver failure, convulsions and coma.

Although there is currently no vaccine against malaria, Dr Saliba said there are a number of drugs on the market.

"The problem is that the parasite has been able to develop resistance to just about every drug that is currently in clinical use. Therefore, we have to stay one step ahead of the parasite by constantly developing new therapeutic strategies."