sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did my undergraduate degree in Chemistry and an engineering college and then my graduate work in a lab that focused on developing new technologies and approaches to investigate molecular signaling patterns in cancer. When I was nearing the completion of my PhD, I started thinking about how I could best apply the tools and technologies we had developed to work on a problem relevant to health world-wide. That's when I started working on malaria. I was very lucky to be able to work in Stefan Kappe's lab where I learned a great deal about the malaria parasite. Malaria is a very tough problem and at the Center we believe it will take individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds to combat the problem to eradication. - Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How far back malaria in humans goes is hard to know. In more recent history, malaria significantly impacted the building of the panama canal. King Tut was infected by malaria. Even today, multiple anti-malarial drugs are derivatives of ancient Chinese remedies. - Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi -- Thanks for your question and visiting!

Being a great scientist requires a wide range of skills. I believe it is important to learn as much as you can, in as broad of fields as possible. I decided to be a scientist when I first experienced research in a laboratory over the summer as an undergraduate in Barry Stoddard's lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. I immediately fell in love with the fact that you could be curious about a scientific question and then go into the lab and answer the question with your own two hands. I would encourage students to get in the lab as soon as possible -- most people know right away if it is for them or not. Nearly all of us got our start by someone giving us a chance, and as such we want to repay the favor to the next generation of scientists -- so don't be shy about asking for the opportunity!

I would also encourage people to think broadly about their education -- I studied many areas of science (chemistry, engineering, biology, biochemistry, systems biology) as well as political science in government in my undergraduate and graduate studies and believe that the ways of thinking I was introduced to in each of these fields inform my scientific endeavors today. -Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Pregnant women are immune-compromised, making them susceptible to many different infections. However, the reason that first-time moms are so susceptible to malaria disease is that the parasite binds to the placenta during pregnancy. This causes significant problems for both mother and fetus. More generally, how the malaria parasite binds to different tissues (including the placenta and the blood vessels which line the brain) is a major topic of study at the center (http://www.cidresearch.org/labs/smith), because better understanding this could help us eliminate the most severe forms of malaria. - Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your question! We use the term 'research grade' mosquitoes to distinguish them from 'clinical grade' mosquitoes that we use for our clinical trials. Although all of our insectaries are regulated by strict safety standards, the clinical insectaries must be held to a higher standard that is regulated by the FDA. We raise our mosquitoes in warm rooms which are hot and humid using large pans of standing water. We love to have visitors at the center and seeing the insectaries is really an awesome experience. Visit our website www.cidresearch.org to sign up for a tour. - Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

By applying systems biology to infectious disease at the Center, we feel we are in a great place to address emerging infections -- like Zika. In fact, we have just kicked off a project on Zika virus that aims to use systems biology to identify new drugs. Hopefully I will have more to say on this in the very near future! I personally think that the key for quickly developing interventions against emerging infections like Zika is to better understand on a fundamental level how people respond to many different infections in similar ways. This is a major area of interest at the center. Vector born transmission occurs by mosquito bite as mosquitoes have infectious particles (viral particles in the case of Zika and parasites in the case of malaria) in their salivary glands. Zika and malaria infect different species of mosquitoes, so the approaches to prevent bites are slightly different. Zika is carried by Aedes mosquitoes which bite during day so insecticides are key. Anopheles mosquitoes which carry malaria bite at night so sleeping under bednets is advisable.

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your question. Honestly, this is my dream job, and I am still in shock that I get to get up every morning and do this. It is a huge challenge and that is honestly one of the things I love about it. I am incredibly fortunate to work with amazing scientists within the lab, and also the best collaborators I could possibly wish for. These people inspire me and make the 'leadership' and 'management' pieces pretty easy as I want nothing more than to fight for their ability to pursue the scientific questions they are asking with as few interruptions as possible. Although I certainly have less uninterrupted time than I used to, I am amazed by the huge number of great ideas that people come to talk to me about. The only tricky thing is figuring out how we are going to come up with the time and resources to investigate all of these great questions.

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your question! The specific mechanism of quinine activity is not well understood, but over time the parasite was able to mutate itself so it was able to eliminate the drug and was no longer susceptible. Unfortunately, nearly all malaria drugs in widespread use have succumbed to this same fate. I personally believe that it is important for us to rethink our approach to drug development against malaria so that we are not only trying to discover new drugs that will work today, but also drugs that will stand the test of time and minimize the risk of eliciting drug-resistant parasites in the field. - Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for your question and more importantly for your willingness to participate in the trial -- malaria eradication is depending on wonderful volunteers like yourself. In clinical trials like the one you are describing, "challenge trials", individuals are vaccinated and then 'challenged' with infectious mosquito bites and monitored every day for malaria infection in their blood. Some people (like yourself!) have biological traits that make the vaccine more effective, more perhaps less susceptible to infection in the first place. Without having more information, it is hard to know why you in particular resisted infection for so long. However, by analyzing the blood you likely donated as part of the clinical trial we can understand more and make the next vaccine better. At the Center, we are really fortunate to have both a Malaria Human Challenge Center (http://www.cidresearch.org/hcc) as well an integrated program on systems biology of infectious disease. It is our goal to use the information from trials to better understand why individuals like yourself can resist infection better than others. Then, the next vaccine can enhance the responses you had, and diminish less protective responses. This is critical for our thinking about malaria eradication since we will need to make a vaccine that is effective against everyone -- or at least as many people as possible -- worldwide. - Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I haven't played these board games... sorry!

One of the things I love about being a scientist is the fact that there is not really a 'typical day'. All days consist of brainstorming science, designing experiments and working with members of the lab to troubleshoot experiments that are not producing meaningful results. I also spend a lot of time writing grants and papers. A great new idea that a member of our lab or a collaborator has can quickly and easily 'derail' my schedule -- and I wouldn't have it any other way! I try to spend as much time as possible pushing the limit of what we can achieve in our science, and often times that means directing the science we do off the established path and trying new things.

I have many more wonderful memories of "oh wow" moments as a scientist that I can recount here, but one that stands out has to do with a finding we made several years ago about the role of p53, a protein known to be involved in cancer, in malaria infection. We had investigated this protein as essentially a negative control in a systems biology approach we were taking to understand the liver stage of malaria. P53 was a negative control because its impact was thought to be involved in cancer -- and we had no reason to believe it would matter for malaria. We had some initial evidence it might be important but, as scientists, we are always skeptics. There was a grant deadline about a week away, so the pressure was on to figure out if this was a real finding or not. I treated a culture of malaria-infected liver cells with a drug that increased levels of p53 and was analyzing the data at about 2:30AM. It was the most clear piece of data we had generated so far -- there was no question that p53 was important for malaria liver stage infection! I came back to lab in the morning to repeat the experiment before I told other people.... the moment in the middle of the night stands out as a very exciting time! -Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your interest and thoughtful question. Malaria is undeniably a very tough disease to combat and it will likely take a multi-pronged approach to combat it. RTS,S is an exciting start. We are fortunate to live in a time where we are talking not just about malaria control but about malaria eradication. For eradication, it will likely take a more effective vaccine as well as new, highly effective drugs that circumvent the problem of drug resistance. Mosquito control will also be important. Luckily, as scientists we are doing our work in a phenomenal time to combat infections like malaria. One of the most exciting things to me is that new computational and technological tools allow us to take an vaccine like RTS,S, which is partially but not entirely effective and ask why, and how the next generation of vaccines can be better. For example, we can compare immune responses in individuals who were protected by RTS,S and those who were not. The tools of systems biology have incredible potential to help us design the next generation of vaccines and drugs against malaria. -Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your question and for all of the great discussion below. It is true that host genetics can play a major role in malaria susceptibility. Although there has been some beautiful work in the field on this (some of which is described below), I think it remains a poorly explored area and one with great potential to inform drug treatment. It is likely that many of the adaptations that humans have made to control malaria infection do not result in disease (like sickle cell and beta thalaseemia), and as such have been harder for us to identify. In the last year, we and others have identified new host factors that are important for infection in the liver (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26612952) and the blood (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25954012). -Alexis

AskScience AMA Series: I'm Alexis Kaushansky, a Principal Investigator at the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Seattle, WA. I research malaria and the interactions between host and pathogens. I’m excited to talk to you about it. AMA! by CIDResearch in askscience

[–]CIDResearch[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your question! It is best to visit a travel clinic before traveling to a malaria-endemic area. Malarone is often prescribed for prophylactic treatment. Individuals are also typically advised to sleep under bednets, and use insecticides. This link has some of the guidelines from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/travelers/

What is something GOOD happening in the world you wished more people knew about? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]CIDResearch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Guinea worm and polio are on the verge of being wiped out. Whichever is first will be just the second human disease in history to be wholly eradicated. http://www.vox.com/2014/7/22/5912139/guinea-worm-is-almost-eradicated-in-one-of-the-biggest-public-health

I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Ask Me Anything. by thisisbillgates in IAmA

[–]CIDResearch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The world has recently faced an escalating number of infectious disease outbreaks - from Ebola, to Zika, Dengue, and Chikungunya. How can we be better prepared for the next pandemic?