Fungus loaded with scorpion toxin to fight malaria

Meet our newest potential weapon against malaria – a fungus loaded with a chemical found in scorpion venom. Metarhizium anisopliaeis a parasitic fungus that infects a wide variety of insects, including the mosquitoes that spread malaria. Their spores germinate upon contact and the fungus invades the insect’s body, slowly killing it. Now, Weiguo Fang from the University of Maryland has modified the fungus to target the malaria parasites lurking inside the mosquitoes. Fang loaded the fungus with two chemicals that attack the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. The first is a protein called SM1 that prevents the parasites from attaching to the mosquito’s salivary glands. By blocking Plasmodium‘s path, SM1 stops the parasite from travelling down the mosquito’s mouthparts into the people it bites. The second chemical is scorpine – a toxic protein wielded by the emperor scorpion, which kills both bacteria and Plasmodium. This double whammy of biological weapons slashed ...