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| Chris White, Black Hills State University senior biology and chemistry major from Rapid City, will present his research on malaria treatment to state lawmakers at the State Capitol in Pierre. |
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| White |
Chris White, Black Hills State University senior biology and chemistry major from Rapid City, will present his research to state lawmakers at the State Capitol in Pierre. White is among 12 students from across the state who will present research at the 2012 Student Research Poster Session.
Along with his studies, White has been involved with the BHSU student organization, Scientia, and is the current president. He has also been involved in tutoring students in math and chemistry, as well as working as a lab assistant in general chemistry. He is conducting research focusing on malaria treatment.
This past summer, White collaborated with a medicinal-organic research group as a Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN) fellow with Dr. John Dixson, BHSU assistant professor of chemistry. White’s research has been directed at establishing an effective method for determining drug inhibition rates against malaria parasites. An estimated 300-500 million new cases of malaria are reported annually, resulting in up to 2.7 million deaths each year. As a result of the development of resistance to traditional anti-malaria compounds, such as artemisinin and chloroquine, by the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, a worldwide effort in the search for a new novel anti-malarial compound is under way. The BHSU student and his faculty mentor are part of this effort.
Working with Dixson’s group, the anti-malarial properties of four different species of plants belonging to the genus Artemisia were explored. These plants are not only sisters to the plant that artemisinin was derived from, but are also found in western South Dakota. Anti-malarial activity was confirmed in six out of 12 crude extracts in a morphological assay.
“This assay was tedious, time consuming, and subjective. Recently we have transitioned to a 96 well micro-titer plate-based biochemical assay. The findings from the morphological assay were confirmed in the biochemical assay, with complete inhibition at lower than therapeutic doses in two extracts. These results indicate that the extracts potentially contain compounds that differ from artemisinin and perhaps are more potent. Future work will focus on purification and structural determination of the active compounds,” said White.
White will graduate from BHSU this May, his exposure to medicinal-organic chemistry and the possible applications of his research have prompted him to pursue a doctorate degree in the field of Medicinal Chemistry upon graduation.