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Cal scientist's malaria work nears reality
French firm developing low-cost treatment from bioengineer's research
By Betsy Mason, STAFF WRITER
Article Created: 04/21/2008 02:34:37 AM PDT
Hopes for an affordable treatment for malaria, which kills a million people a year, may soon be realized, thanks to a University of California, Berkeley, scientist.
For more than a decade, bioengineer Jay Keasling has been devising a way to engineer bacteria to mass-produce a semi-synthetic version of artemisinin, a critical but expensive ingredient in lifesaving malaria drugs.
Now, French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-aventis has signed on to help bring Keasling's breakthrough work to the market at a cost that can make a difference for many of the estimated half a million people, mostly children in Africa, who are infected with malaria every year.
Currently, the drugs are made by extracting artemisinin from wormwood or synthesizing it in a laboratory, both expensive, time-consuming processes. Keasling's work would speed up production by forcing E. coli bacteria to produce artemisinin, a process that might be done quickly, cheaply and at high volume.
"The world needs a complementary source of artemisinin in addition to the botanical to stabilize the market and keep up with increasing demand," said Nina Grove, head of the malaria program at the Institute for OneWorld Health, which received a $42.6 million, five-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2004 to coordinate the research and development of the artemisinin.
For decades, the primary treatment for malaria was chloroquine, which cost 10 cents or less per dose and was very effective. But the parasite that causes malaria developed resistance to the drug.
So the focus shifted to preventing malaria by killing the mosquitoes that carry the disease, primarily with nets treated with insecticide that protect people as they sleep.
A new effective treatment has been found, called artemisinin-based combination therapy, that adds different ingredients to the fever-reducing artemisinin.
Different combinations of chemicals attack different stages of the parasite's complicated life cycle, which keep the bugs guessing and stop them from developing resistance.
"If you are constantly giving the same drug, you're more likely to achieve resistance," Grove said.
But at about $2.40 per person, these drugs are out of reach for most malaria victims. Nine out of 10 malaria deaths are among sub-Saharan children under the age of 5, and some families spend a quarter of their annual income on treatments.
Now with Sanofi-aventis on board, Keasling's vision of cheap, effective mass-produced malaria treatments may be close to reality.
"Our goal is to have the semi-synthetic artemisinin in at least one artemisinin-based combination therapy by 2010," Grove said, acknowledging that there are still some technical hurdles left for scaling up production.
"We really think we can take this a lot further," she said.
Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. She can be reached at 925-952-5026 or bmason@bayareanewsgroup.com.
Cal scientist's malaria work nears reality
French firm developing low-cost treatment from bioengineer's research
By Betsy Mason, STAFF WRITER
Article Created: 04/21/2008 02:34:37 AM PDT
Hopes for an affordable treatment for malaria, which kills a million people a year, may soon be realized, thanks to a University of California, Berkeley, scientist.
For more than a decade, bioengineer Jay Keasling has been devising a way to engineer bacteria to mass-produce a semi-synthetic version of artemisinin, a critical but expensive ingredient in lifesaving malaria drugs.
Now, French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-aventis has signed on to help bring Keasling's breakthrough work to the market at a cost that can make a difference for many of the estimated half a million people, mostly children in Africa, who are infected with malaria every year.
Currently, the drugs are made by extracting artemisinin from wormwood or synthesizing it in a laboratory, both expensive, time-consuming processes. Keasling's work would speed up production by forcing E. coli bacteria to produce artemisinin, a process that might be done quickly, cheaply and at high volume.
"The world needs a complementary source of artemisinin in addition to the botanical to stabilize the market and keep up with increasing demand," said Nina Grove, head of the malaria program at the Institute for OneWorld Health, which received a $42.6 million, five-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2004 to coordinate the research and development of the artemisinin.
For decades, the primary treatment for malaria was chloroquine, which cost 10 cents or less per dose and was very effective. But the parasite that causes malaria developed resistance to the drug.
So the focus shifted to preventing malaria by killing the mosquitoes that carry the disease, primarily with nets treated with insecticide that protect people as they sleep.
A new effective treatment has been found, called artemisinin-based combination therapy, that adds different ingredients to the fever-reducing artemisinin.
Different combinations of chemicals attack different stages of the parasite's complicated life cycle, which keep the bugs guessing and stop them from developing resistance.
"If you are constantly giving the same drug, you're more likely to achieve resistance," Grove said.
But at about $2.40 per person, these drugs are out of reach for most malaria victims. Nine out of 10 malaria deaths are among sub-Saharan children under the age of 5, and some families spend a quarter of their annual income on treatments.
Now with Sanofi-aventis on board, Keasling's vision of cheap, effective mass-produced malaria treatments may be close to reality.
"Our goal is to have the semi-synthetic artemisinin in at least one artemisinin-based combination therapy by 2010," Grove said, acknowledging that there are still some technical hurdles left for scaling up production.
"We really think we can take this a lot further," she said.
Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. She can be reached at 925-952-5026 or bmason@bayareanewsgroup.com.