Undergraduate Research at Virginia Tech

More than Just a Bug Bite: One Student’s Itch to Help Fight Malaria

By Ally Haak, English major

Malaria, currently the most important parasitic disease in the world, kills more than 3,000 children every day in sub-Saharan Africa. The math adds up to more than 1 million preventable deaths a year. Some of the World’s best scientists and medical researchers are trying to find stronger and more effective ways of fighting this disease. Sam Faith, now a senior in biological sciences at Virginia Tech, joined the battle.

Faith grew up in Spain and always loved traveling. He greatly enjoyed French in high school and, odd as it may sound, it was this passion that led him into his scientific research. Faith wanted to become fluent in French but thought that all of his work in preparation for medical school would keep him from this. He was wrong.

The opportunity presented itself when Faith received an e-mail informing him of an internship opening at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The summer 2007 job included a 10 week project and a highly selective application process; The Pasteur Foundation accepts only four undergraduates from the United States each year! He was helped in his endeavor by Carla Finkielstein, assistant professor of molecular biology at Virginia Tech. Upon acceptance, Faith packed his bags for the life-changing experience.

After arriving in Paris, the four American students were split up to work on four separate projects. Other projects included work on HIV and dengue fever. Faith was assigned work in the malaria research lab. The project concentrated on the spreading of the Malaria disease from mosquito to humans to determine what inhibitors were the most effective. The process was risky.

Faith was given uninfected insects in high security cages. His job was to infect the clean mosquitoes with a strand of malaria found in mice. In a process similar to many horror movie scenes, Sam injected mice with malaria contaminated blood. Approximately two weeks later, the mice began to reveal symptoms of the disease. Once they appeared sick, the mice were sedated. The sleeping mice were placed on top of mosquito cages. The cages were bursting with two-day starved blood-suckers. For 15 minutes, the insects were given free reign to slurp up the diseased mouse blood. Upon their meal, the mosquitoes became infected with the malaria parasite.

Malaria rarely affect mosquitoes, but, upon infection, the parasite develops inside the insect. At the sporozoite stage, the parasites attach themselves, unluckily for humans, on the salivator glands. These glands, located near the mouth, produce saliva. When the mosquito bites the human, a small transfer of the sporozoites is made into the human body. Faith and his co-workers were studying the ability of inhibitors to stop the movement of the sporozoites.

In order to test their effectiveness, Faith collected and crushed sporozoites and placed them on large cultures. Injecting these cultures with different inhibitors, Faith and his team were hoping to learn what stops the development cycle (i.e. stops the movement and transport of malaria before it reaches and harms humans).

Antibodies were introduced that allowed the researchers to see the tracks of the movement of the sporozoites under fluorescent light. If the malaria-carrier had tracks, the inhibitors were not working. If there was no movement, then the inhibitors were effective.

After completing the experiment, the workers observed that the inhibitors were not working; the movement and transportation of malaria continued despite the introduction of inhibitors. Faith suggested the problem might be the use of human malaria inhibitors on infected mouse blood. However, the research was a success in many other ways.

During the process, Faith’s team created a plasmid that will allow further research into the binding of DNA to the parasite’s DNA. This plasmid will help with the continuation of and deeper research into malaria. Furthermore, the experiment was reproduced successfully, which is a fantastic achievement for Faith’s lab. Now he hopes to return to the Pasteur Institute to advance his research on stronger malaria inhibitors.

On an unscientific note, Faith benefited from his study abroad experience in terms of his own growth. He learned how important the understanding of different cultures is to him. He also learned how to speak French more fluently and became a part of Parisian society He plans on returning to France to continue his research but also to study his passion for music.