Brandeis Researcher Fights Cypto Parasite
There is no vaccine for it and only a few medicines work well against without making the person with it even more sick. The cryptosporidium parasite is truly a nasty, nasty bug.
The water-borne parasite makes thousands upon thousands of children in the third world sick with diarrhea. Besides children, cypto is often deadly for people in developing countries who are already suffering with compromised immune systems from AIDS or Cancer.
That's why there is intense interest in research being done to fight this parasite. The Voice of America follows these developments closely. VOA News reports on progress being made by Researcher Liz Hedstrom from Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
"We found 10 compounds that did selectively bind to the parasite enzyme and not the human version," Hedstrom says. "It turns out that those 10 compounds do actually inhibit parasite growth."
The next step, Hedstrom says, is to test these ten compounds to see which works best and can be tolerated by animals and then by humans. She hopes that in several years, they'll be testing prototype drugs in animals.
Her research is published in the journal Chemistry and Biology. Go here for the VOA News story.
