Comparative study of the in vivo and in vitro infectivity of purified metacyclic promastigotes using a Ficoll density gradient versus cultivated promastigotes in the stationary phase of Leishmania (V.) braziliensis and Leishmania (V.) peruviana
Katherine TORRES FAJARDO student laureatekathjess2000@yahoo.com
°1976 Peru Master of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru, 2007
Estudio comparativo de la infectividad in vivo e in vitro de promastigotes metacíclicos purificados en un gradiente de densidad de Ficoll versus promastigotes de cultivo en fase estacionaria de Leishmania (V.) braziliensis y Leishmania (V.) peruviana
Katherine Torres, 32 years of age, a Peruvian biologist, is a member of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute of Tropical Medicine at the University of Cayetano Heredia in Lima. She is part of an internationally-renowned group who develops molecular biological tools for research into the parasitic diseases that are endemic in Peru. The group is supported by the Belgian Development Co-operation, the European Union and the World Health Organization.
Katherine has devoted her Master's thesis to a disease that is common in Latin America: cutaneous and muco-cutaneous leishmaniasis or espundia. The disease starts with skin ulceration and spreads to the nose in such a manner that it can gradually eat away the face and the throat. The disease is caused by a single-cell parasite, Leishmania braziliensis, transmitted through the bite of a small mosquito. Espundia, initially limited to the tropical forest, is currently spreading rapidly, not only because of forest colonization, but also due to the domestication of its transmission in villages and urban districts. Three quarters of Peru have become at risk of leishmaniasis. The poorest populations are those most affected. Conventional treatment is lengthy, toxic and expensive. Drug resistance has also occurred. The disease has been neglected for a long time, even forgotten, particularly by pharmaceutical researchers.
For the purposes of her research, Katherine Torres has developed a simple and inexpensive model for the experimental infecting of laboratory animals with the prevalent leishmaniasis in her country: transformation of leishmanias grown in vitro into leishmanias that are infectious to the animal, purification of these infectious forms with centrifugation, and infection of in vitro blood cells and in vivo hamsters. Katherine has assessed this model on Leishmania braziliensis and on a Leishmania parasite specific to Peru that is not very virulent, L. peruviana. The biological and genetic comparison of these two parasites has shown the value of the experimental model proposed by Katherine. Henceforth, this model allows for the fundamental and applied study of the different species of Latin American leishmanias, in all stages of development in insects and in animals, and in particular the epidemiological monitoring of drug resistance, its genetic understanding, and research into new medicines.
report: Prof. emeritus D. Le Ray, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
