Rapid Method for the Quantification of Exo-Erythrocytic (Liver-stage) Malaria Parasites

Manual quantification of the malaria parasite is time consuming, costly and inhibits vaccine and drug development. The objective of this Phase I SBIR is to develop and validate an image capture, documentation and quantification technology to score theinvasion of malarial parasites in hepatoma cells. The quantitative image analysis software will be designed as to provide the basis of a fully automated microscopy technology. Technical innovations incorporated in this proposal include, 1) a digitalimaging system for the capture and documentation of malarial parasites in hepatoma cells, 2) technology for the scoring of the number of malarial parasite invasion and 3) the transition to a fully automated microscopy system that eliminates userinvervention and provides high-throughput screening capability.MD Biotech has experience in developing high-throughput automated microscopy systems for the pharmaceutical industry. The Automated Comet Assay System is an exapmle of MD Biotech's abilities.The proposed detection technology and transition to an automated microscopy system meets the critical need within the malarial vaccine and drug development programs to increase assay throughput, relieve technical personnel from hours of tedious microscopeviewing, remove scoring bias and eliminate errors due to scorer fatigue or inconsistant application of scoring criteria. Commercial applications of this proposed research include improved imaging, scoring and automation of the envasion of parasites andinfectious agents within various mammalian cells. This technology has direct applications in vaccine research, preclinical drug screening and other numerous cell based assays.