Symposium Tackles Malaria

Harvard scientists called for more attention to controlling malaria at a high-profile symposium yesterday that signalled a push to use genetic technology to treat diseases in the developing world.

“Genetics has not made the contribution to infectious diseases it should have,” said Eric S. Lander, a leader of the Human Genome Project and director of the Broad Institute, a joint venture between Harvard and MIT that specializes in genomics. Lander said genetic applications to medicine have largely focused on “first-world diseases,” such as cancer.

The conference, held on Africa Malaria Day at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), explored new ways of combatting the disease that claims more than one million lives—mostly young African children—every year.

“There are over 200 million new cases of malaria each year,” said Strong Professor of Infectious Diseases Dyann F. Wirth, who directs the Harvard Malaria Initiative. “It’s a major disease which deserves our attention.”

While she said she was not sure why there has not been more success in treating and preventing malaria, Wirth asserted that it is fundamentally a “controllable disease.”

Still, scientists and physicians face major obstacles such as the rapid evolution of drug resistance. But Wirth said new strides are being made as a result of emerging collaborations across the University and at the Broad Institute.

Barry R. Bloom, the dean of HSPH, opened the conference to a standing-room only crowd of about 60 scientists and students. Bloom said Africa Malaria Day commemorates the 2000 signing of a declaration at which African heads of state committed to reducing malaria deaths.

Yesterday was also National DNA Day. Speakers at the conference emphasized how genetic analysis can be used to advance malaria research and how the two fields are increasingly being integrated.

National DNA Day celebrates the date James Watson and Francis Crick published their revolutionary paper about the double-helix structure of DNA, as well as the completion of the sequencing of the human genome in 2003.

Lander, the geneticist, said “the idea of getting the sequences of many malaria genomes is not nuts.”

“Genomics seems like it’s now finally engaged in a partnership with infectious disease,” he went on. “This is just the very beginning.”

Lander called on students, particularly undergraduates, to work together for the sake of scientific progress. A mathematician by training, he encouraged students “to get a sense of the derivative... how fast things really can move.”

Shiv M. Gaglani ’10, who recently founded a student group for interdisciplinary science research called the Harvard College Undergraduate Research Association, said he was glad he attended the symposium.

“I’m missing class, and it’s completely worth it,” he said.

—Staff writer Shoshana S. Tell can be reached at stell@fas.harvard.edu.