Developing countries such as Asia Africa and India all face one major public health problem, disease through sand fly bites, in particular the parasite known as Leishmania. This parasite is known for killing more than hundreds of thousands of people annually. This infection cause’s the world second most fatal parasitic disease, black fever. Scientist believe that by getting this parasite “in the mood for love” and breeding their offspring may uncover a very important step in uncover the gene required to neutralize it.
The idea is to the mild strained parasite with the more harmful strain parasite then look at the offspring to see which will be more likely to cause severe infection and result in death. By tracking the deadly portions passed on by the parent’s genetic material they should then be able to identify the segments of the genome that are responsible for the parasites ability to cause severe infection. The hard part was to get these parasites to reproduce.
Like most microorganisms Leishmania can reproduce by cloning, involving one parasite, or by creating offspring with genetic material from two parasites. These microorganisms prefer to reproduce by cloning rather than sexual reproduction. Getting these microorganisms to have sex in cultured dish’s has been somewhat or a challenge for many scientists. After several years scientist came to the conclusion that it was a number game. Every time they had more parasites in the fly sexual crossing was evident and vies versa. Once the scientist can successfully bread the microorganism reproduction it will be a lot easier for them to isolate the required infection causing disease and thus they will be able to neutralize it
and save countless
life’s in third world countries.
Article from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090409142250.htm
Image from: http://www.aids-images.ch/slides/1003,700,600,0,0.jpg
