| Africa helps itself |
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| Written by Dr Madsen Pirie | |
| Wednesday, 07 February 2007 | |
African scientists feel neglected by their politicians, reports the Economist.
This may be true, but the article goes on to record some
ground-breaking work done in that continent to deal with some of its
special problems. Rift valley fever, for example, blights the life of
nomadic herders in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. They
could use a vaccine.This is what Felicity Burt, of the University of the Free State, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, is trying to create. She has taken a virus called sindbis, which does not cause serious symptoms, and swapped the genes that code for its protein shell with a selection of those that do the same job for the rift-valley-fever virus. When her vaccine is injected into an animal, it causes the production of rift-valley viral proteins without the associated fever. The immune system can then learn to recognize those proteins, so that it can react rapidly if it encounters real rift-valley viruses.So far it works on mice, and causes sheep to produce the appropriate antibodies, though it's yet to be discovered if it protects them. In another encouraging development Jennifer Thompson and Edward Rybicki, of the University of Cape Town have worked out how to combat the maize-streak virus which in bad years can wipe out an entire crop. Dr Thompson and Dr Rybicki's trick was to insert a modified viral gene into the maize. This gene encodes a mutated version of one of the proteins that the virus needs to copy itself. When expressed at high levels in a plant infected with maize-streak virus, the modified protein outcompetes the normal version, throwing a spanner into the works of viral assembly.So far it's been tested in greenhouses, and the trait has successfully passed itself on through four generations. If field trials repeat the success, it bodes well for the countries affected. This kind of work helps confront the image of Africa as a helpless and dependent case. It will be sad if predatory NGOs, anxious for scare campaigns to boost membership fees, try to ban trade in the African livestock and crops involved, as part of a blanket campaign against genetic modification.
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