International Research in Cambodia: Malaria Research

National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases

Investigators

Abstract

Our research program focuses on four subject areas: (1) the nature [unreadable] of protection against malaria that is conferred to individuals carrying [unreadable] hemoglobin mutations and red blood cell polymorphisms including but not [unreadable] limited to hemoglobin C, hemoglobin S, hemoglobin E, alpha- and [unreadable] beta-thalassemia, and G6PD deficiency; (2) the nature of infant protection [unreadable] against malaria in the first few months of life, involving cooperative [unreadable] interactions between fetal hemoglobin and maternal-derived immune [unreadable] antibodies; (3) the molecular mechanisms by which malaria-protective [unreadable] polymorphisms reduce the expression of PfEMP-1, the main virulence factor [unreadable] of Plasmodium falciparum, on the surface of parasitized red blood cells; [unreadable] (4) the nature of microvessel inflammation and other pathogenic processes [unreadable] caused by the adherence of parasitized red blood cells to human [unreadable] microvascular endothelial cells and blood monocytes. In each of these [unreadable] areas we seek research advances that can improve the knowledge of fatal [unreadable] disease processes in individuals with malaria and thereby support the [unreadable] development of new antimalarial therapeutics and vaccines that aim to [unreadable] prevent death. The research activities in our program are [unreadable] multidisciplinary and include three field studies in malarious regions of [unreadable] Africa and Asia as well as programs of basic laboratory investigation. [unreadable] Methods:In vitro culture, immunoblotting and immunoprecipitation, ELISA [unreadable] method, cytoadherence assays under static and physiological flow [unreadable] conditions, immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy, electron [unreadable] microscopy, atomic force microscopy, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), [unreadable] automated DNA sequencing, hemoglobin typing by HPLC, mRNA expression [unreadable] analysis by microarray techniques, flow cytometry.