BioMalPar XVI Virtual Conference “Biology and Pathology of the Malaria Parasite” – 2020: Day 1

MESA Correspondents bring you cutting-edge coverage from the BioMalPar XIX: biology and pathology of the malaria parasite

Opening remarks

The first virtual BioMalPar conference started with the opening remarks by the scientific organizers. Silvia Portugal (Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany) highlighted the high numbers of registrations, almost 400, from around the world. 70 of them from malaria endemic countries. Sam Wassmer (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, LSHTM, UK) summarized the good practices for the following two days and encouraged attendees to participate in the virtual pub quiz happening at day 2. Finally, Alfred Cortés (Barcelona Institute for Global Health, ISGlobal, Spain) went over the program and suggested the use of the tools created to communicate among us during the conference.

Virtual Session 1 – Emerging Challenges and new tools

Laurent Dembele (University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, Mali) presented his findings on the association between dormant rings and artemisinin (ART) drug resistance. Specifically, the focus laid on resistance induced ring stage dormancy in P. falciparum aiming to identify potential artemisinin partner drug candidates that are active against all ring stages including those with K13 mutation. The methodology included the evaluation of the in vitro drug sensitivity profile of normally developing P. falciparum ring stages and dihydroartemisinin (DHA)-pretreated dormant rings (DP-rings). Dembele presented on two compounds, KDU691 and GNF179. While KDU691 was found to be highly inhibitory against DP-rings and would be only useful after DHA exposure to eliminate dormant rings, GNF179 was found to be a suitable drug candidate, as it eliminated dormant parasites including those that break K13 mutations and are resistant. By combining compounds like GN179 with ART, novel antimalarial combination therapies would be created and may help preventing ART resistance spread to Africa.

The special lecture by Regina Rabinovich (Harvard TC Chan School of Public Health; Barcelona Institute for Global Health, ISGlobal, Spain) about the COVID-19 and malaria interface started with areview of the history of the fight against malaria, from the Global Malaria Eradication program to the scale up of interventions following increased global funding, the increased data availability, and the evolution of the global malaria agenda. The World Health Organization (WHO) was already tackling the plateau in malaria progress prior to COVID in 2020. The Strategic Advisory Group on malaria eradication, established by the Director General of the WHO, was asked to address likelihood of future malaria eradication taking into account a variety of determinants such as climate change, economic development and other megatrends. However, a pandemic was not included as a potential threat. Malaria endemic countries face challenges with the novel COVID-19 pandemic, especially in Africa, and this may add additional challenges to progress in achieving malaria goals. Rabinovich reviewed lessons learned from other diseases on the eradication agenda, emphasizing the need to continue “research and development even beyond eradication”. A 6-step strategy was proposed including: planification, innovation, research affordability, fundraising, generation of data and community engagement. Malaria urgency and burden in endemic countries is clear, but translating the culture of urgency from COVID-19 where collaboration, funding and efforts to accelerate translation to the field are evident, to malaria, is a critical component of the interface between the pandemic and the global malaria program.

Virtual Session 2 – Parasite biology

The keynote from this session addressed the very intriguing process of how parasites escape the lockdown in red blood cells. Manoj Duraisingh’s (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA) mentioned how the depletion of Plasmodium falciparum protein phosphatase 1 (PfPP1) gene, related to the egress of Plasmodium falciparum parasites, was the central question around the presented experiments. Early and mid PfPP1 depletion resulted in abnormal schizogony and DNA replication; mid-stage depletion in atypical nuclear division; while late-stage depletion revealed an essential function on post-replicative egress. Further studies with PfPP1 depleted suggested that the inability to activate protein kinase G could be responsible for the block in egress. A more ‘intriguing result’ was the strong synergy with a phosphodiesterase-inhibitor, indicating a potential negative feedback loop preventing premature egress. PfPP1 has an essential role in schizogony and coordinates multiple signals early in egress. Finally, the progress of parasites escaping red blood cells is regulated by intrinsic signals associated with PfPP1, but also by exogenous lipids.

Virtual Session 3 – “Omics” approaches & evolution

Jane Carlton (New York University, USA) was in charge of the keynote of the session on “How Evolutionary genomics plays an important facet of malaria studies in India?”. Carlton incorporated Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) and Plasmodium vivax (Pv) isolates from India into a global sequencing map that provided evidence of widespread genomic admixture within and between Pf parasite’s populations of the European, African, and Asian continents. Indian Pv isolates showed higher polymorphic lineage than that of Pf or other isolates being hybrid of the Old World and New World and therefore increasing the difficulty of Pv elimination. The analysis and findings demonstrated the use of evolutionary genomics as an informative approach to trace parasitic populations’ history in a highly diverse country where submicroscopic and asymptomatic infections are increasing. Carlton ended her talk with a call for more sequencing data to capture the diversity of Pf and Pv parasites in the context of shifting malaria epidemiology, especially genome sequence data in India.

* MESA only reported the talks that had the approval of the speaker.