Many of these parasites cause significant disease in humans and other mammals and many studies on parasite structure and function are now being aimed at defining specific targets for chemotherapy or for recombinant vaccines. Relatively little progress has been made towards the production of suitable vaccines for any of the protozoan species and the emergence of drug-resistant strains has made the development of new drugs an urgent issue. Knowledge of the basic biochemistry and molecular biology of these parasites remains scant and this undoubtedly contributes to the lack of progress in developing new drugs and vaccines to control the diseases they cause. In third world countries it is a major contributory factor in malnutrition and high infant mortality rates. Like Trichomonas, the current treatment involves metronidazole and related compounds, and there is increasing evidence of resistance.
Malaria is a disease caused by infection of the red cells by the malarial parasite.
Recently this disease has become a major problem worldwide, due to resistance of the parasite to most known drugs. The research in this department is aimed at a rational approach to the development of new antiparasitic agents in malaria by investigating biochemical pathways which are different in the parasite compared to the host and by cloning some of the parasite genes which are essential for the survival and reproduction of the parasite. A variety of tetrahydrofolate derivatives are involved in one-carbon transfer reactions during the synthesis of purines, pyrimidines and some amino acids. This aspect has not been investigated in Babesia species and we recently cloned and sequenced a fragment of the TS gene as a prelude to investigating the organisation of the DHFR and TS gene sequences in this parasite. A project which investigates the organisation of these sequences and their heterologous expression may be offered.