Notre Dame researchers using novel method to combat malaria drug resistance

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame have developed a ‘gene chip’ to contribute to the identification of malaria drug resistance, an effort that will allow for real-time modified treatment strategies for this devastating disease. Artemisinin, a natural product from a plant, is the latest candidate drug to combat multi-drug resistant malaria. However, this last line of defense against malaria world-wide is increasingly falling victim to the problem of malaria drug-resistance. The Notre Dame team, working with the project leaders at Texas Biomedical, used new genomics and bioinformatics approaches to investigate malaria drug-resistance. The gene chip performs detailed genetic analysis of malaria patient samples. This chip can analyze 7,000 informative SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) spaced evenly throughout the parasite genome. This gives researchers the ability to 'see' how the genome is changing under drug selection.