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.
Not quite the pitch I originally made, rather heavily edited - But nevertheless great to see the submission accepted.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!
The horror! Won't somebody think of the mosquitos being genocided by killer robots !?
A warm fuzzy feeling inside. Not only because of killer robots and dying mosquitos, but because some idiot at PETA will be annoyed. My day is now complete. :P
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
The antivaxxer anti-irradiation vegan insect rights anti-robot coalition will rise up, certainly.
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.
I did. Happiest thought I've had all year.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
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...
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.
Yeah, then we can get back to putting lead in gasoline, and treating VD with arsenic.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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!
IIRC, the problem with DDT was that is was used indiscriminately and in large quantities, rather than locally, in small quantities, and only use it if the situation warrants it. The dangers of using DDT in that manner may well have warranted the outright ban, but it's been proven since that DDT can certainly be used responsibly, especially against the spread of malaria.
It's similar to the practice of putting antibiotics in cattle feed to prevent / treat diseases or promote growth. Feed used to be laden with the stuff, which gave rise to all manner of resistant strains of diseases. Many countries have now regulated such use of antibiotics and often only allow it when there is an actual outbreak to be treated, but antibiotics haven't been banned outright as far as I know.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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.
I eagerly await the next Japanese horror movie.
Have gnu, will travel.
... because all environmentalist efforts are equally valid (?)
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.
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.
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.
DDT isn't actually banned in the countries where malaria is endemic - the US isn't one of these, obviously. In fact, mosquito control is still agreed to be a valid use for DDT, unlike agricultural pest control. I know "environmentalists kill people" is a fun meme but would it kill you to get your information from someone other than Michael Chricton?
DDT didn't get banned in malaria countries, dummy.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
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.
DDT is not banned in regions where malaria is prevalent.
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/...
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.
Likely they are already aware that DDT was never banned (and is still in use) in areas with malaria. There's no stopping the frothing of the anti-environment types though - vaccine or no.
Why they don't leave the irradiated mosquitoes go back in the wild in order they can diffuse the vaccine themselves?
How would you monetize that?
The scale of DDT spraying has shrunk in those areas - limited to indoors instead of areas.
Yes. It turned out that carpet bombing with DDT just created DDT resistant mosquitoes.
DDT is still used in some areas. However more use means less effective over time. Insects evolve resistance. PLus, a vaccine is better. Killing mosquitoes impacts bird population.
There is exactly zero evidence that any resistant bacteria comes from cattle. IT has all come from hospitals; which makes sens if you actual understand how it works,
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
morbo
VACCINES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! /morbo
You need to inject a dose.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I agree. As someone who lives in a mosquito infested region, I only wish I could get a video of the process. Watching the little bastards get irradiated, then chopped into pieces would bring great joy to my heart!
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.
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/...