Enlistment of omics technologies in the fight against malaria: Panacea or Pandora's Box?

Abstract

Plasmodium spp, the causative agent of malaria, imposes an enormous cost on the developing world. Current methods are inadequate for long-term management and eradication, and new treatments are desperately needed. The modern arsenal of "omics" technologies appears to offer a promising approach to engineering a long-term solution to malaria. However, because funding for malaria research is chronically limited, the potential results of omics methodologies must be examined to address whether the investment is justified. This review provides an overview of a suite of omics-related technologies in terms of their potential contribution to the field of malaria research.

Functional genomics of Plasmodium falciparum using metabolic modelling and analysis

“…With the constantly decreasing cost of high-throughput measurements, the tendency to generate very large -omics datasets is emerging and this holds also true for P. falciparum [15]. There are two distinct approaches to high-throughput measurements: hypothesis-driven studies generate large datasets to prove or falsify a hitherto existing hypothesis, while hypothesis-free studies primarily rely on a thorough analysis of datasets without presumptions aiming at the formulation of conclusions and testable hypotheses.…”

PlasmoID: A P. falciparum Information Discovery Tool

“…This requires a thorough insight into the functioning of the parasite both at the biochemical as well as cellular level [van Dooren et al, 2006]. A systems biology approach that combines metabolic pathway and biological process data, collected via an array of methods and technologies, provides the framework for gaining this insight [Birkholtz et al, 2006;Hayes et al, 2006].…”