University of Ulster scientists have made a significant breakthrough in the global research into cryptosporidium, the parasite responsible for majority of gastrointestinal parasitic infections around the world.
Despite intensive efforts for more than 20 years, there is currently no effective drug treatment against cryptosporidium, a water borne parasite that can infect both humans and domestic, and wild animals. Infection by the parasite causes cryptosporidiosis, the associated disease, which in healthy adults can cause unpleasant diarrhoea but for people suffering from AIDS and others to susceptible infection, it can be potentially fatal. Cryptosporidiosis currently kills around 20% of AIDS patients.
Dr Colm Lowery, a senior member of the internationally renowned UU cryptosporidium research group in the University’s Centre for Molecular Biosciences at the Coleraine campus, explained that UU’s novel approach involved the identification of proteins expressed at different stages of the life-cycle of the Cryptosporidium parasite.
“The study was the first major proteomic investigation of its kind on cryptosporidium species and represents a substantial step forward in our understanding of cryptosporidium biology and potential therapy development – we’ve put one of the major pieces of the jigsaw in place.”
“This breakthrough in understanding the molecular biology of the organism will help to lay the foundations for other related research which in turn could lead to the development of a vaccine for cryptosporidium,” said Dr Lowery.
The UU led research involved international collaborations between leading scientists from the University of Albany in New York (Dr Qishan Lin), Belfast City Hospital (Dr John E. Moore, and, Dr B. Cherie Millar) and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome (Dr Fabio Tosini and Dr Edoardo Pozio).
Dr William Snelling, the group’s postdoctoral researcher, said they have already identified a number of potential targets for the development of vaccines and chemotherapies, which could be used to improve the treatment of infected patients.
Although there has been an increase in the number of cryptosporidiosis outbreaks recorded in developed countries in recent years, it is still largely underreported which makes it difficult to assess its true impact. The largest cryptosporidium outbreak was in 1993 in the US when 403,000 people were infected through contaminated drinking water in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The total cost associated with this outbreak was estimated at $96 million: $ 31 million in medical costs and $64 million in productivity losses.
Because of the huge economic and human costs associated with cryptosporidium, the UU research has already generated a lot of interest.
Dr James Dooley, Senior Lecturer and cryptosporidium research group leader, said: “The quality and impact of our study has been recognized by Dr Mark Heiges, from the University of Georgia, Athens, who will represent our analysis in CryptoDB (http://cryptodb.org), the prominent global community resource for scientists studying Cryptosporidium genomics”.
This research has been invited for presentation at the Annual International Cryptosporidium and Giardia research conference, which is to be held in Mexico in May 2007.
