Researcher’s breakthrough could mean improved malaria treatment
An antibiotic with malaria- curing potential has been engineered at OSU
Kayla Harr – The Barometer
Issue date: 5/11/11 Section: News
Oregon State University researchers have engineered a new, viable strain of an antibiotic that is effective against malaria, but has not been used in treatment because of its high toxicity.
Taifo Mahmud, associate professor and researcher in the College of Pharmacy, and molecular and cellular biology graduate student Wanli Lu have created a new analog of the anti-malarial drug pactamycin that lacks the toxicity of the original drug but can still be used to treat malaria.
According to Mahmud, pactamycin occurs in soil bacteria. The original compound was discovered in the 1960s and was not developed further because of its toxicity and the chemical complexity of the compound.
“It’s a strong antibiotic; it kills fungi but at the same time it will also kill mammalian cells as well; it’s very toxic,” Mahmud said. “The compound is very complex. It’s very difficult to modify the compound via conventional organic synthesis.”
Mahmud began researching modification of pactamycin in 2005 using biosynthetic and genetic engineering methods. Lu began performing lab work for the project in 2008.
“We try to understand how nature makes the compounds,” Mahmud said. “We look at the genomes and try to connect all the dots, try to understand the biosynthesis of the molecules. Then once we understand the process, we can engineer or modify machineries inside the bacteria so we can engineer analogs or derivatives of the compound.”
Using this approach, Lu worked in the lab to alter the compound and engineered a strain that kills the malaria parasite without killing human cells. According to Lu, though this process required him to spend a lot of time working in the lab, the results have made his efforts worthwhile.