final?

Mosquitoes can carry deadly diseases like malaria. Professor Baden-Wood has developed a diagnostic for malaria using a technique called ATR spectroscopy. ATR spec measures how light interacts with cells, and can detect the specific vibrations of molecules associated with the malaria parasite. By analyzing patterns and frequencies, AI models can accurately predict whether a blood sample has malaria or not. This technology could help in diagnosing and treating the disease. Mosquitoes, mozzies, little buggers, whatever you call them, we've all been bitten before. But have you ever wondered, or panicked, what was that mozzie carrying? Could you be infected? Welcome to Global Challenges, the podcast. Today, we are talking chemistry, chemistry and mosquitoes. We all know how much of a nuisance mozzies can be, but they are more than just a pest. They can be deadly. This is certainly the case with the disease malaria. Malaria is a pretty scary disease, and it's able to sneak around on the backs of mozzies as a vector-carried disease. Today, we're lucky enough to welcome Professor Baden-Wood, who will be speaking with us about this. He is the Director for the Centre of Biospectroscopy and a professor at the Monash University Chemistry Faculty. He has been involved in the creation of a diagnostic for malaria using chemistry techniques, using something called Attenuated Total Reflection Spectroscopy, or for short, ATR spectroscopy. Don't be scared, we'll definitely be talking through this and exploring how Professor Baden has used chemistry to address this life-threatening disease. Welcome Professor Baden and thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to speak with us. Before we get into some complicated chemistry, could you give us some insight into what malaria actually is? Sure. Malaria is a disease transferred by the mosquito vector, and it takes in a very dangerous parasite because when it enters the body, it first goes into the liver, and if you're a child under four years of age, it's fatal. Where it becomes really bad is when the red blood cells develop little spicules on them and they lodge inside the brain and it causes hemorrhaging in the brain, and that's when it becomes fatal. So before we get into the specifics of the diagnostic and the work that it relates to in malaria, we've promised our listeners that we'd explain what ATR spectroscopy is. We spoke to Professor Baden in detail about this topic, and here are our key takeaways. The spectroscopy equipment is made up of a glow bar that produces infrared light. This light then travels through a series of mirrors into a crystal on which the blood sample is placed. ATR spec measures how light interacts with cells, and this is exactly where the magic comes in. As it turns out, all molecules are constantly vibrating at unique frequencies. In this case, infrared spectroscopy shows a normal red blood cell as just a bag of hemoglobin vibrating, whereas an infected blood cell has the specific vibrations which correspond to all the chemistry of the malaria parasite, such as DNA, RNA and hemozoin. Using AI models based on the patterns and frequencies of thousands of patients, both infected and healthy, we can get an accurate prediction of whether the blood sample taken point of care has malaria or not.