Scientists From Queensland Might Have Cured Malaria

Scientists at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute have made a major breakthrough in treating malaria. In 2015, the disease killed 438,000 people—more than 90 percent of these were in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Queensland researchers have developed a protein, which has been proven to completely cure mice that were given a "lethal dose" of malaria. It also protected the mice against being reinfected by the disease.

Dr Michelle Wykes, who led the research at the institute's molecular immunology laboratory, said this treatment came on the back of new understandings about how malaria works in the body.

Essentially, within human's immune system there are two types of cells. "There are dendritic cells, which are the generals of the immune army, and there are T cells, which are the soldiers," Dr Wykes said. "The dendritic cells tell the T cells when to attack an infection and when to put down their weapons."

Dr Wykes and her team developed a synthetic version of a protein called PD-L2, which can override the dendritic cell's instructions and make the T cells keep fighting the disease. Given three doses of this protein, the infected mice were completely cured of a case of malaria that should've killed them.

A few months later, the team reinfected the same mice but, this time, didn't give them the synthetic PD-L2 protein. "All of the mice were completely protected and didn't become infected," Dr Wykes. Just three doses of PD-L2 had made the mice immune to malaria, one of the world's deadliest diseases.

If it can be developed for humans, this approach—which is known as immunotherapy—could change the way we treat malaria. Essentially, it's teaching the body's own immune system to fight the disease, rather than relying on external treatment.

"There are drugs available that treat malaria, but emerging drug-resistance is becoming an increasing problem, especially in parts of South-East Asia," Dr Wykes said. "Vaccines that are being trialled generally only protect against some species of malaria parasite, and they don't protect people in the long-term. This means that we urgently need new treatments."

Critically, if it's successful, QIMR Berghofer's immunotherapy treatment could potentially cure all strains of malaria, which is spread to humans by the Anophelesmosquito.