"How Malaria Dupes Immune System"

Purpose: This article shows and explains how and why malaria is such a deadly virus.

Key Ideas:

• The insects that inject malaria "turn on" a gene in a humans body that creates proteins that will camouflage the infected cells that enter the body.
• If the body recognize these camouflage protein, the disease can make different kinds.
• Malaria kills about 2 million people each year.
• The disease is good for sneaking into the immune system.
• The disease also has many different forms of camouflage proteins that are dormant until they are needed.
• Because the disease can keep changing, so the immune system does not have time to counter the attack.
• Many scientists are trying to figure out the key for being able to see past the camouflage proteins

Key Conclusion: I think that this is very interesting and quite scary. It is interesting because it is fascinating how a virus can disguise itself with created proteins, but on the other hand, it is scary because of the deadly effect of the disease's abilities. If any other virus were to mutate and be able to have the same attributes as malaria, it would become so much more deadly. Also, this may be something that will be able to help in the medical world. With the problems of autoimmunity diseases, many patients may be able to disguise transplanted cells that would normally be destroyed by the immune system. For example, scientists could insert insulin producing cells in a person with diabetes, and because it is disguised by proteins, diabetes could be cured. All in all, I thought that this article was: scary, interesting, and something that could help many people.

"BBC NEWS | Health | How Malaria Dupes Immune System." BBC NEWS | News Front Page. Web. 19 Apr. 2010. .

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