Slashdot Mirror
Robots and Irradiated Parasites Enlisted In the Fight Against Malaria
First time accepted submitter einar.petersen (1178307) writes "Sanaria is a biotechnology company that has developed a new malaria vaccine. To produce the vaccine Sanaria cultivates mosquitos in a sterile environment and infects them with Plasmodium falciparum. When the mosquitos are chock-full of Pf sporozoites, the company irradiates them to weaken the parasites. Workers then herd up the mosquitos, chop off their heads and squeeze out their salivary glands, where the parasites prefer to live the better to port over to the mosquito’s next victim. They retrieve the weakened parasites from these tiny glands, filter out other contaminants and gather them up into an injectable vaccine. Sanaria’s method faces the additional challenge that dissecting the little buggers is tedious. Researchers can dissect 2-3 mosquitos an hour, which is nowhere near enough to mass-produce a global vaccine. So two years ago, Sanaria began working with the Harvard Biorobotics Lab to develop a robot that could do the work faster."
This is exactly what happens when you raise the minimum wage. All the mosquito head chopping work gets automated.
What it's so cool and great
Not quite the pitch I originally made, rather heavily edited - But nevertheless great to see the submission accepted.
I truly wish Sanaria the best of luck with their venture and hope the slashdot community will help them reach their noble goal!
Perhaps a decade from now, when the vaccine is available, the poor folks living in these areas can stop cursing at the western do-gooders who got DDT banned.
The horror! Won't somebody think of the mosquitos being genocided by killer robots !?
Wow.
My wife just got malaria a few weeks ago while visiting Africa. She heard there was a vaccine in development, so I figured it was the usual weakened culture, but I had no idea it actually required dissecting mosquitoes.
I also didn't realize it was Plasmodium falciparum. This is pretty amazing, as not only is falciparum the most deadly species, but it's also the one that responds least to current treatments. If successful (and mass-producible), this could be like the polio vaccine. It'd be a huge advancement in the health of malaria-threatened countries.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
And sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
I am interested in exactly how they cut off mosquito heads and empty the salivary glands.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Apparently linux is now being used used to chop heads off! Watch out ms!
I would have thought that one of the US Military (to protect service personnel), Bill Gates (isn't his foundation working on a malaria vaccine too?), or governments in malaria regions would fund this. The desired $250K is nothing for such sources.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Thank you so much Slashdot for posting this. It made my day. I can't remember the last time I read something so inspiring and exciting. Time to make a donation...
Maybe I'm underestimating the resourcefulness of the robots in question, but somehow I don't think that the vaccine produced in this heroic manner will ever become widely available to the people who need it, many of whom live on $2 a day. It's awesome that it works, but now that we know it, I would love to see us focus on exactly how the weakened parasite produces the immune response. Then we can try to either engineer an organism like Plasmodium falciparum that doesn't need need mosquito saliva in its life cycle, or a different organism that can produce whatever protein that, in weakened Plasmodium falciparum, triggers the protective immune response in humans. After all, we no longer slaughter chimpanzees to get our polio vaccine...
I'm quite scared by that. You first irradiate them, causing huge amount of genetic mutations. Then you change the environment, killing weakest mutants and let the best live on.
Isn't it a recipe for eventually creating super-bug?
Well, I thought this was worthy of a $5 donation. Now let's just hope they don't spend that much with mailings trying to get me to contribute more.
... I could be a part of the next clinical trial!
I'm sorry if this sounds too self-centered but assuming that the vaccine has been proven to be safe (I'll take the risk that it might not be effective), I'd be happy to make a donation of a few hundred dollars to be one of the first people to receive it. (I live in a part of the world where I could get malaria). I figure that if I paid a lot more than they expect the final vaccine to cost (there's no way they'll be able to reach hundreds of millions of people in the third world if it's more than a few bucks), I would be helping to accelerate the development of said final vaccine. I think it's only reasonable that I be permitted to get it sooner!
Again, sorry for the "elitist" I want it first attitude but in this case, the early adopters like me would make it possible to save many more lives in the process. And, I don't know too much about these kickstarter campaigns but isn't that typically what donors get in return for their advance payment, to be first in line to get the finished product? Here I'd be doing the same but paying many times the (hoped for) final cost!
Just thought I'd ask.
This technique isn't that far from the one pioneered by Salk nearly a century ago. Isolate and identify the pathogen, then manufacture a weakened or dead version of the pathogen to inoculate patients.
So now these robots will be all "I am Squeezer. Please insert mosquito."
I eagerly await the next Japanese horror movie.
Have gnu, will travel.
Hum, I wonder why they don't just have the mosquitoes with the weakened parasites bite people. Seems like a lot of work to dissect mosquitoes, concentrate the vaccine, deliver it to doctors, put it in a syringe and inject it. Just ship the mosquitoes to where they are needed, put them in a box, and have people who need immunity stick their arms in the box.
I am surprised no one has commented on the fact that Sanaria is a for profit company. Why wouldn't they go down the stock route if this was a worthy venture, or at the very least offer stock in the crowdfunding campaign. Enjoy funding a company who will be selling this at cost + profit but don't worry you get some pictures for helping pay for the companies development.
The second technique involves showing them mildly amusing videos and when they smile, it is easier to slip through the syringe and extract the saliva.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Sadly the Indiegogo campaign is at only 14% of the $250,000 asked for ($34,000) with 5 days to go. Although unlike Kickstarter, Indiegogo campaigns get whatever money is raised even if they fail to hit the target.
IBID.
Why they don't leave the irradiated mosquitoes go back in the wild in order they can diffuse the vaccine themselves?
Not really, you'd be selecting for radiation resistance I guess but that doesn't seem like it would have much relevance as far as human health goes.
So basically they want the investment without giving away equity? Good on them, but if this idea has legs then money should not be an issue.
I'm quite scared by that. You first irradiate them, causing huge amount of genetic mutations. Then you change the environment, killing weakest mutants and let the best live on. Isn't it a recipe for eventually creating super-bug?
Did you miss the part where it's all done in a closed laboratory and they chop the mosquitoes' heads off?
Decapitatiting mosquitoes is hardly going to affect the parasite, which is the thing getting irradiated and possibly mutated. Closed labolatry doesn't really matter, because they are then going to inject irratiated parasites as vaccine.
Key part here is probably amount of radiation - way beyond "let's damage few DNA strands" and more into "why your blood is glowing at night". It is probably strong enough that there is no way any mutation can survive it.
Since a vaccine just stimulates your body to produce antibodies via exposed to a "dead virus", shouldn't having had it before mean her body has already been exposed and thus created antibodies?
Wouldn't the irradiation that weakens the parasite also kill/weaken the mosquito?
Why couldn't they just release the irradiated mosquitos directly into affected areas and have them act as a free vaccine distribution vector? I do appreciate that there will be issues but the final costs would be orders of magnitude lower and this approach would naturally be targeting the areas where mosquitos are most active.
www.washington.edu/news/2000/03/30/magnetic-fields-may-hold-key-to-malaria-treatment-uw-researchers-find/
Henry Lai, UW research professor of bioengineering, says the malaria parasite Plasmodium appears to lose vigor and can die when exposed to oscillating magnetic fields, which Lai thinks may cause tiny iron-containing particles inside the parasite to move in ways that damage the organism.
ÃoeIf further studies confirm our findings and their application in animals and people, this would be an inexpensive and simple way to treat a disease that affects 500 million people every year, almost all in third-world countries,Ã Lai said. According to the World Health Organization, as many as 2.7 million people die of malaria every year. Approximately 1 million of those are children.
In the past two decades, the emergence of drug-resistant malaria parasites has created enormous problems in controlling the disease. Lai says his method could bypass those concerns because it is unlikely Plasmodium could develop a resistance to magnetic fields. ....ÃoeWe need to make certain that it wonÃ(TM)t harm the host,Ã Lai said. ÃoeMy guess is that it wonÃ(TM)t. ItÃ(TM)s a very weak magnetic field, just a little stronger than the earthÃ(TM)s. The difference is that it is oscillating.Ã
If the method is proven effective and safe, Lai envisions rooms equipped with magnetic coils to produce the oscillating field.
ÃoeIt would be very easy. People could come to the room and sit and read or whatever while theyÃ(TM)re being treated,Ã he said. ÃoeOr you could set it up in the back of a big transport truck, then drive from village to village to treat people.Ã
Collaborating researchers include Jean E. Feagin, UW associate professor of pathobiology and senior scientist at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute; and Ceon Ramon, UW electrical engineering research scientist.
This was discovered in 2000.Whats happened since?
Any answers?
http://www.washington.edu/news/2000/03/30/magnetic-fields-may-hold-key-to-malaria-treatment-uw-researchers-find/
Here's a demo of the new robot. Surely it would be easy to downside and re-purpose these for mosquito heads.
http://www.theonion.com/video/...