SARANAC LAKE - Researchers at the Trudeau Institute, and in Germany and the Netherlands, have isolated a protein that they say will help treatment of a common and dangerous tropical parasite.

This protein mimics the immune response that "a more complex mixture of proteins usually evokes," said Trudeau spokesman Brian Turner. This will help future research into schistosomiasis, an infection of parasitic worms that is common in tropical countries, by making it easier and quicker to perform experiments.

"A lot of basic research discoveries are incremental steps that, eventually, can lead to new treatments and therapies that can improve, and lead to new treatments and vaccines," Turner said.

The discovery comes from an international study by Markus Mohrs of the Trudeau Institute, Gabriele Schramm of the Research Centre Borstel in Germany and Maria Yazdanbaksh of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

The parasites, which are spread by poor drinking water and unsanitary conditions, live for years in blood vessels. The eggs they produce cause inflammation and, in severe cases, life-threatening liver disease. Infection contributes to various chronic ailments, low birth weights and birth defects.

The main treatment is the drug Praziquantel; re-infection rates are high, and it is feared that widespread use of the drug may foster the emergence of drug-resistant variants.

These findings are being reported in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

---

Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.