Scientists have identified the core genes that are essential for the deadliest malaria parasite to survive, revealing new targets for drugs or vaccines to fight the potentially deadly disease they cause in people.
Using new genomic techniques to analyse the parasite’s genes, researchers from Britain’s Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of South Florida (USF) were able to determine which ones are indispensable.
Latest World Health Organisation (WHO) data show that 216 million people were infected last year with the malaria parasite, which is transmitted by blood-sucking Anopheles mosquitoes. Nearly half a million people – most of them babies and children in Africa – died from the disease in 2016.
One type of the malaria parasite, known as Plasmodium falciparum, or P. Falciparum, causes half of all malaria cases and around 90 percent of the deaths.
The Sanger and USF researchers, whose work was published in the journal Science on Thursday, analysed almost every one of this parasite’s 5,400 genes.
They used a specialised technique called piggyBac-transposon insertional mutagenesis to inactivate genes at random, and then developed new DNA sequencing technology to identify which genes were affected. Their results showed that around half the parasite’s genes - more than 2,600 - were essential for it to grow in red blood cells.
“Using our genetic analysis tools, we (were) able to determine the relative importance of each gene for parasite survival,” said John Adams, a specialist in global health and infectious disease research at USF.
Malaria is a treatable disease if it is caught early, but current antimalarial drugs are failing in many areas due to increasing drug resistance.
“We need new drug targets against malaria now more than ever,” said Julian Rayner, a Sanger expert who co-led the research. “This gives a list of 2,680 essential genes that researchers can prioritise as promising possible drug targets.”
Results
1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1hr 32mins 03.897sec
2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull-Honda) at 0.745s
3. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) 37.383s
4. Lando Norris (McLaren) 46.466s
5.Sergio Perez (Red Bull-Honda) 52.047s
6. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 59.090s
7. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) 1:06.004
8. Carlos Sainz Jr (Ferrari) 1:07.100
9. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri-Honda) 1:25.692
10. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin-Mercedes) 1:26.713,
Essentials
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Los Angeles, from Dh4,975 return, including taxes. The flight time is 16 hours. Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Aeromexico and Southwest all fly direct from Los Angeles to San Jose del Cabo from Dh1,243 return, including taxes. The flight time is two-and-a-half hours.
The trip
Lindblad Expeditions National Geographic’s eight-day Whales Wilderness itinerary costs from US$6,190 (Dh22,736) per person, twin share, including meals, accommodation and excursions, with departures in March and April 2018.
Business Insights
- As per the document, there are six filing options, including choosing to report on a realisation basis and transitional rules for pre-tax period gains or losses.
- SMEs with revenue below Dh3 million per annum can opt for transitional relief until 2026, treating them as having no taxable income.
- Larger entities have specific provisions for asset and liability movements, business restructuring, and handling foreign permanent establishments.
Game Of Thrones Season Seven: A Bluffers Guide
Want to sound on message about the biggest show on television without actually watching it? Best not to get locked into the labyrinthine tales of revenge and royalty: as Isaac Hempstead Wright put it, all you really need to know from now on is that there’s going to be a huge fight between humans and the armies of undead White Walkers.
The season ended with a dragon captured by the Night King blowing apart the huge wall of ice that separates the human world from its less appealing counterpart. Not that some of the humans in Westeros have been particularly appealing, either.
Anyway, the White Walkers are now free to cause any kind of havoc they wish, and as Liam Cunningham told us: “Westeros may be zombie land after the Night King has finished.” If the various human factions don’t put aside their differences in season 8, we could be looking at The Walking Dead: The Medieval Years.
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Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
