Effective Way to Treat Malaria with Artemisinin

Artemisinin, which has been used in China since the year 150 AD to treat fever, has been believed to be an effective remedy for malaria after a study in Vietnam found that the drug can reduce mortality up to 97% of all malaria patients studied.

This parasitic disease attacks the 500 million people and is responsible for 1.5 million deaths annually. Recently, the parasite that causes malaria becomes resistant to medical therapy available today. Artemesinin combined with antibiotics, providing a quick defense against malaria and claimed to be the only remedy available today that does not lead to the emergence of resistance.

 Effective way to treat malaria with Artemisinin

Currently, artemisinin production is mostly done by farmers in Vietnam and China. They harvest wormwood (artemisinin producing plants) every eight months. Lack of supply of raw materials to make artemisinin prices remain high.

Jay Keasling, a UC Berkeley Professor of Chemical Engineers are attempting to produce artemisinin cheaply. With his team, he developed a process called "synthetic biology" that uses bacteria that have been genetically altered to produce chemical compounds. This process has been developed over 10 years. 

Not the same as modern biotechnology drugs such as insulin, which takes a single gene transfer into bacteria, the process of "synthetic biology" requires 12 genes derived from the wormwood plant chemicals to stimulate spending from a strain of E. Coli. This process consists of 12 steps, until now could only be done step 9. Prof. Jay Keasling said that the move to 10, artemeisinin compounds can be produced. Hopefully