Nature article highlights UGA malaria researcher

Congratulations are in order to University of Georgia professor Vasant Muralidharan, an assistant  professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of cellular biology. His research was recently highlighted in the journal Nature.  Muralidharan, who studies the biology of the deadly malaria eukaryotic parasite, worked with with a group of researchers as a post-doc at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to investigate a means to trap and kill the parasite. You can read more and hear an accompanying audio piece about this published research here. 

Scientists may be able to entomb the malaria parasite in a prison of its own making, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report July 16 in Nature.

As it invades a red blood cell, the malaria parasite takes part of the host cell’s membrane to build a protective compartment. To grow properly, steal nourishment and dump waste, the parasite then starts a series of major renovations that transform the red blood cell into a suitable home.

But the new research reveals the proteins that make these renovations must pass through a single pore in the parasite’s compartment to get into the red blood cell. When the scientists disrupted passage through that pore in cell cultures, the parasite stopped growing and died.

Muralidharan now works on his research here at UGA and his work is a great addition to the collaborative efforts of researchers at the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. His lab website describes the crux of his research interests as follows:

We are interested in understanding the biology of the deadly human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. Malaria is a nefarious human disease that primarily afflicts the tropical and sub-tropical parts of the world, infecting about 300 to 500 million people and causing almost a million deaths each year. Most of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa in children under the age of 5. We deploy a wide variety of tools to study the parasite including cellular biology, chemical biology, molecular biology and biochemistry. The goal of our research is to investigate new classes of drug targets to understand their role in parasite biology and develop better drugs against them.

We aim to understand the roles of a family of proteins called chaperones or heat shock proteins (Hsp) in allowing the parasite to establish its habitat within red blood cells. All living cells have this specialized family of proteins, such as Hsp110, Hsp70 and Hsp40, that use ingenious mechanisms to maintain cellular proteostasis, prevent protein aggregation and usher proteins to their proper cellular destinations across cellular membranes.

Muralidharan’s presence adds further value to the University of Georgia’s thriving research endeavors.  Studying a disease that causes almost a million deaths worldwide each year is valuable, important work. We look forward to learning more about further research in the coming months and years.

Photo: Muralidharan via UGA Cellular Biology website: cellbio.uga.edu