Malaria Biotech Solution |
Statement of Purpose:We’re sophomores from San Marin High School Biotech STEM(Science Technology Engineering Math) class. We were given a project to figure out a biotech solution to a real life problem. We’re focusing on something that can prevent malaria.We found out that malaria is transmitted through female mosquitos. We have learned that the Vitamin B1 can prevent mosquitos from biting. If you take more B1 than needed, it will excrete through urine, skin, and sweat. We’re interested in finding a way to genetically modify cells to increase the production of vitamin B1 in humans to prevent malaria carrying mosquitoes from biting.
We plan on starting small and attempting our solution with white blood cells in petri dishes before we move to attempting entire organisms. From our research, we found out that one of the possible solution might be to use gene therapy to increase the production of vitamin B1. Gene Therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease. Currently, they haven’t done gene therapy on inserting a gene into a patient's cells. We want to inject retroviral vector to white blood cells by using gene therapy so all the white blood cells the body produce more vitamin B1. We found out that males can take 1.2 mg of vitamin B1 per day and 1.1 mg per day for females. Overdose of Vitamin B1 can upset stomach, cause allergic reaction, and imbalance of other B vitamins. This might be one thing we need to cautious about. |
Problems:
We are trying to find a way to limit the infection of people living in areas with mosquitoes containing Malaria. People traveling to areas overseas near or in Africa are in danger of getting Malaria.Mosquitoes that carry Malaria have nocturnal feeding habits, thus Malaria transmission occurs between dusk and dawn. We’re looking for a solution to prevent malaria.We found out that malaria is transmitted through female mosquitoes because only females bite. Occasionally, it is transmitted through blood transfusion or congenitally from mother to fetus. Malaria is a life threatening disease that causes shaking chills that can range from moderate to severe high fever, profuse sweating, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, anemia, muscle pain, convulsions, coma, bloody stools According to http://www.healthline.com/health/malaria#Overview 1 infected mosquitoes carry the Plasmodium parasite. When this mosquito bites you, the parasite is released into your bloodstream.Once the parasites are inside your body, they travel to the liver, where they mature. After several days, the mature parasites enter the bloodstream and begin to infect red blood cells. Within 48 to 72 hours, the parasites inside the red blood cells multiply, causing the infected cells to burst open.The parasites continue to infect red blood cells, resulting in symptoms that occur in cycles that last two to three days at a time. Previous attempted solution: There are no available drug regimens guaranteeing 100% protection. Many people attempted to find a way to stop malaria from spreading. One of the solution they attempted solution was the malaria prophylaxis. It is a preventive treatment of malaria. Quinine is also used for malaria treatment. It has no role in prophylaxis. It’s used with a second agent in drug resistant P falciparum. The second agent is doxycycline, tetracycline, pyrimethamine sulfadoxine or clindamycin. Several malaria vaccines are still under development. There are other attempted solution other than vaccines. For example, they invented a mosquito net treated with permethrin. There are clothes that covers most of the body and have been treated with Permethrin. People also use insect repellents containing appropriate levels of DEET. Before travelling, many people take antimalarial drugs. It’s doesn't prevent the disease so they need to continue dosing with antimalarials after departure from an endemic area ensures that drug will kill any lingering parasites. Current Limitation/Present need: Currently gene therapy has not been performed on humans as of right now since it’s hard to introduce new genes and keep them working in the body. Another limitation we have is that the body can only withstand a certain amount of vitamin B1 before the body responds poorly to it. Also a problem in gene therapy is delivering a gene to the wrong tissue can cause major health problems for the patient. A limitation in using gene therapy is that we do not know some of the long term effects of it and if someone undergoes Gene therapy their DNA has been modified making it some that there is no way that the inserted gene could be transferred to the gametes. There is also risk of tumor growth. When it comes to gene therapy the immune system along with antibodies and t-cells may destroy the foreign objects in the body. Also the body for certain patients might not allow the repeated gene therapy. Proposed solution: We have learned that the Vitamin B1 can prevent mosquitos from biting. If you take more B1 than needed, it will excrete through urine, skin, and sweat. We’re interested in finding a way to genetically modify cells to increase the production of vitamin B1 in humans to prevent malaria carrying mosquitoes from biting. We’re focusing on something that can prevent malaria.We found out that malaria is transmitted through female mosquitos. We have learned that the Vitamin B1 can prevent mosquitos from biting. If you take more B1 than needed, it will excrete through urine, skin, and sweat. We’re interested in finding a way to genetically modify cells to increase the production of vitamin B1 in humans to prevent malaria carrying mosquitoes from biting. Mentor FeedbackNone
ReflectionIn this project we had to find a biotech solution to a real life problem. Our group chose Malaria. We wanted to use Vitamin B1 (thiamine) to genetically modify peoples cells to create excess B1 in the body because female mosquitoes find it offensive. In this project I was able to come up with our idea to create a solution to the malaria problem and find a few of our mentors and help create and efficacy test and that B1 would be a useful material in our solution. I could have improved on finding better mentors and I could have been more involved in the actual email and what overdose of B1 could cause.
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Efficacy test: #1
What you're testing: amount of B1 needed to excrete through the body Materials to be tested: smaller cells and different amounts of of B1 Independent variable: amounts of b1 dependent variable: excretion of the b1 Controlled variable: incubated room temperature Amount of b1 Consistently same size and shape petri dish procedure : 1. Obtain container 2. Put cell containing specified amount of b1 into dish 3. Put dish in incubated room 4. Wait determined amount of time 5. Test area around for excreted b1 |
Efficacy Test: #2
Objective: We are trying to find a way to genetically modify cells to increase the production of Vitamin B1 in humans to prevent malaria carrying mosquitoes from biting. Materials to be tested: The amount of B1 in our cells that prevent mosquitoes from biting. Other Needed Materials: B1, parent cells, mosquitoes, and a human. Independent Variable: Production of B1 in cells Dependent Variable: The amount of B1 inputted in the cells Controlled Variables: Mosquitoes to human ratio, size of area conducted in, the use of female mosquitoes, mosquitoes capable of carrying malaria that do not possess it that contain the Anopheles genus. Procedure:
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