Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 2499

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 2499
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 than 95% of all malaria-related deaths. Plasmodium parasites have a complex lifecycle (Fig.
14), which begins when humans become infected following the bite of an infected anopheline mosquito. During blood feeding, an infected
female mosquito (only female mosquitos feed on blood, which is necessary for egg laying) injects a parasite stage called a sporozoite
into the human blood stream. These sporozoites leave the blood stream and rapidly (within 5 minutes) infect liver cells. Within the liver
cells, the sporozoites multiply asexually with each sporozoite giving rise to up to 10,000 merozoites. These merozoites rupture out of
the liver cell and each merozoite rapidly infects (within 140 microseconds) an individual red blood cell. Within the red blood cell,
the merozoite undergoes an approximately 48-hour developmental cycle. Each merozoite sequentially develops into a ring stage parasite,
a trophozoite stage parasite, a schizont stage parasite and then the schizont stage parasite segments into approximately 20 daughter
merozoites, which rupture from the red blood cell. Each of these twenty daughter merozoites infect new red blood cells. This blood stage
infection expands exponentially until the red blood cell loss become sufficient to cause disease. In addition, the trophozoite- and schizont-stage
infected red blood cells become very sticky, leading to clogged blood vessels and tissue damage to the infected human. Ultimately, some
of the parasites differentiate into sexual stages, which are referred to as gametocytes, which can be taken up by a mosquito during a
blood meal. Within the mosquito, these gametocytes develop into sporozoites, which can be injected into a new host when the mosquito
takes her next bloodmeal.

34

Figure
14. Lifecycle of Plasmodium falciparum (source: Clinical Microbiology Reviews, Apr. 2011, p. 379)

Limitations
of Current Malaria Control Efforts

There
are currently three approaches to control malaria, including insecticides to kill mosquitoes, bed nets to limit human-mosquito contact,
and anti-malarial drugs used to treat infected individuals. While these interventions have some impact, each has significant limitations.
Insecticides are expensive, difficult to apply, and harmful to the environment. More concerning is the emergence of widespread resistance
of mosquitos to the insect