New method to curing malaria - stick yourself in a microwave?
When a malaria parasite digests hemoglobin, it converts the iron into an inert crystalline pigment called hemozoin. The parasite must do that because free iron will tear oxygen atoms off things the parasite wants intact, like its cell membrane. The hemozoin crystals, packed with concentrated iron, are pushed into the parasite’s food vacuole — the empty space where a rudimentary creature that does not have a gut dumps its waste products. Drifting into an electromagnetic field with a vacuole full of hemozoin is about as brainy as stepping into a microwave with a stomach full of nails. But parasites don’t have brains, either.
A team from Penn State just got a $1 million grant from the Gates Foundation to research the effect of low-power microwaves on the protist responsible for malaria. The research itself is super cool, as is the fact that my research the summer before this was on hemozoin.
The above picture shows clumps of hemozoin in the food vacuole of the plasmodium protist.
