Current millennium biotechniques for biomedical research on parasites and host-parasite interactions

Abstract

The development of biotechnology in the last three decades has generated the feeling that the newest scientific achievements will deliver high standard quality of life through abundance of food Key words: genomics -proteomics -transcriptomics -Chagas disease -leishmaniasis -post-genomics CAN THE LATEST SCIENTIFIC ACHIEVEMENTS IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE OF PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM INFECTIOUS DISEASES?We all agree that recent advances in biomedical technology and genomics have opened up exciting possibilities for the development of vaccines, chemo-and immuno-therapeutics, and new tools for control of transmission of major tropical diseases. Also, it has been considered that infectious diseases represent a tremendous public health burden and continual threat to people living in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. However, the economists in the administration of public or private institutions have curtailed financial support to scientific research in infectious diseases, highly prevalent in the tropics arguing that those diseases will be wiped out solely by social development. This sort of pragmatic econometrics gained much influence among policy makers, regardless of a lack of an ethical consideration of the needs of those individuals already affected by infectious diseases or at continuous risk of contracting the infections. Furthermore, recent annual reports from international organizations showing certain deteriorating healthy condition in the tropical regions of the world strongly advise policy makers that unhealthy life conditions preclude optimal individual productivity and socioeconomic development.In this respect, an international organization report reminds the reader that 20% of the world's population carries at least one helminthic parasite infection, and that 10% are infected with those parasites causing malaria, trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis or filariasis. Greater than 70% of deaths in children less than five years of age and greater than 40% of deaths in developing countries are due to infectious and parasitic diseases. Enteric infections, caused by viruses, bacteria and protozoa, including mycobacterial infections such as leprosy, are responsible for immea-+ Corresponding