Supersensitive detection of Malaria

Malaria currently affects 300-500 million people worldwide and leads to about 2 million deaths annually. Development of a vaccine is critical to reducing mortality and morbidity. BioTraces, Inc. applied its proprietary detection method called Multi-Photon Detection (MPD) to measuring protein levels and developed two types of super-sensitive immunoassays, IA/MPD and Super-ELISA. These assays have about one hundred-fold higher sensitivity than prior art protein quantitation methods. In Phase I, we developed assays for several cytokines and measured the levels of several cytokines in serum from children with Serve Malarial Anemia or Cerebral Malaria. We applied proprietary methods of analysis to these measurements and could distinguish the two forms by their associated immunoprofiles. Using seven biomarkers, mostly cytokines, a perfect separability of these two conditions was achieved. In Phase II, P-chips/MPD will be developed to perform a complete immunoprofile from a single blood sample thus increasing the throughput and reliability of the diagnosis. Further studies of immune profiles in severe malaria anemia and cerebral malaria will be performed and the effects of malaria vaccines on the Immune system will be studied.