Rezümékötet 2008. - vmtdk

É L Õ T E R M É S Z E T T U D O M Á N Y O K
PLAYING WITH MOLECULAR BIOLOGY:
THE 21 ST CENTURY WEAPON AGAINST THE MALARIA
Author: Zoltán LIPINSZKI 3 rd year PhD student
Supervisor: Andor UDVARDY M.D, PhD, D.sc. Senior Scientist,
Institution: HAS, Biological Research Center, Institute of Biochemistry, Szeged
„Many who once cared about the environment now share a Voltairean sentiment that the easiest way out of the
crisis might be to strangle the last panda with the guts of the last blue whale.”
These are the opening words of the book Darwin’s Ghost, one of the newest works of Steve Jones, a genetics professor
of the University of Oxford. The meaning of this quotation is not more than that the dying out of different species
is not a disaster but a part of the natural selection. We can protect them temporarily, but at the end of the story
they will disappear from the biosphere – that is men proposes God disposes. The question is whether in the point of
evolution there are any biological differences or priorities between „useful” species and the mosquito Anopheles gambiae,
the vector of the malaria causing parasite. Nothing! In spite of this natural low together but independently with
thousands of laboratories we try to decrease the spreading of malaria by the selective elimination of the vector animal,
the mosquito.
Applying molecular biology and genetic methods we try to selectively decrease the vitality of Anopheles gambiae.
The base of this study is that we found extraordinary proteases in Drosophila melanogaster that have orthologues in
Anopheles gambiae and also in human. We suppose that the overexpression of these specifically modified enzymes in
male mosquitoes leads to the selective destruction of the transgenic creature. Without males the female insemination
fails, and the genus dies out spatially. In my lecture I will review our findings in detail.
According to the WHO data there are 300–500 million word-wide malarial infections per annum. In spite of the
fact that hundreds of chemical and biological (e. g. eucalyptus groves) methods are in use more than 1.5 million people
die in malaria every year – mainly African children and pregnant women.
In my opinion the above data correctly emphasize the importance of the topic that is very much up to date.
Keywords: Malaria, mosquito, fruit fly
N Y O S D I Á K K Ö R I K O N F E R E N C I A
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