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."

Comments

Tedious work; designing robots

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what happens when you raise the minimum wage. All the mosquito head chopping work gets automated.

Re: Hmmm

[Samantha Wright]

That's unfortunately quite a tall order for the Slashdot community. Now, if you'd wish they'd ramble tiresomely about tiny mosquito-decapitating robot overlords running out of control, you might not go home quite so disappointed.

Not what I had expected

[Sarten-X]

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.

Re:Not what I had expected

[Sarten-X]

She's still in Africa, so she went to a hospital, got tested in an hour, and walked out with appropriate drugs in hand. She was feeling better the next day, and now is doing just fine. Thanks for the concern, though.

It helps that she's had malaria before (this is the third time, I think), so she recognized the symptoms immediately and knew to go to the hospital that day. In America, doctors aren't expecting to see malaria, and they aren't likely to recognize it, so treatment here is actually much more difficult.

Re:Hmmm

[Charliemopps]

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!

Right, I'm not sure why the Slashdot "Editors" think its OK to completely alter your submission and then post it as if it were a quote directly from you.
The first paragraph of your submission:

"Sanaria is a biotechnology company dedicated to the production of a vaccine protective against malaria caused by the pathogen Plasmodium falciparum has developed a vaccine that in trials has proven to be 100% effective."

Absolutely nothing like what they posted and then claimed as a quote from you. I'm not sure what they think they're doing but they're opening themselves up to a lawsuit should they post the wrong thing and claim it was from the wrong person.

It concerns me to the point that I don't think I'll be submitting any time soon. As of yet, they haven't "invented" quotes from me that were inappropriate but the potential is definitely there. Either post what I submitted verbatim or make it clear you've altered it. Don't make up your own submission and then put it into quote flags and claim it's what I wrote. I didn't write that and, to be frank, Slashdot editors aren't qualified to be speaking on behalf. I'd understand if it was just spelling or grammar corrections but completely altering the post is entirely different.

Other funding sources?

[pauljlucas]

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.

Re:second best

[Ol Olsoc]

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.

Re:Interesting

[Ol Olsoc]

I am interested in exactly how they cut off mosquito heads and empty the salivary glands.

It's very similar to the way they get mothballs.