Comments(2)ResponseDavid Wright
(05 October 2009) Vanderbilt University The control or eventual elimination of malaria is not possible without a thorough understanding of the disease as an integrated process. While biological studies traditionally examine a subset of molecular indicators, the dynamic nature of malaria infection (i.e., vector, parasite, and host interactions) lends itself to technologies utilized by the field of systems biology: transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. The transcriptional approach presented here is reductionist by nature, systematically examining the global response to constituent components of hemozoin (the detoxification product generated in response to heme liberated during hemoglobin catabolism) in order to better understand the individual players responsible for macrophage immunomodulation. The studies focus on a specific component of hemozoin, 15-HETE, mapping the macrophage response to this biologically active lipid peroxidation product. It is our hope that this global analysis, with a focus on 15-HETE, will aid in further advancing the malaria knowledge-base with regard to hemozoin's biological activity. Competing interests None declared Have something to say? Post a comment on this article! |
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Please help me out...
Bart Knols (12 August 2009) MalariaWorld
Dear authors,
I have not the slightest hesitation to assume that the work you reported in this article is of high quality; it would not have been published in Malaria J if this wasn't the case.
But for me and those thousands of other readers of the journal, can you please explain to me what this is all about? I have been in the field of malaria for 20 years (on the vector side), sit on the editorial board of this and several other journals, but had a really really hard time to understand the crux of your story.
Would it not be good for Malaria J to co-publish a few hundred words (in a box) in a language that we all speak and understand alongside every article? Explain in simple terms to those not directly engaged at this level what this study was all about, what was found, and how it contributes to our knowledge and ultimately the goal of controlling if not eliminating malaria.
Competing interests
None declared.
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