New Czech Invention Should Protect Against Ticks

The vaccination, which make a tick starve to death. That is the perspective that might be true if the newest discovery of Czech parasitologists proves to work.

A tick sucks blood only three times in its life. As a larvae, a nymph and finally only a female does need it for resources for eggs creation. In order the parasite gets enough, it must stay leeched for quite a long time. Enough time for transmitting viruses which are one of the most dangerous on our planet.

Ondrej Hajdusek and his colleagues from the naturalist faculty of Jihoceska Univerzita in Ceske Budejovice found out, how the parasite deals with too much toxic iron, which it swallows with blood of the host. They could essentially intervene with the digestive tract of these almost insects.

When the scientists blocked the specific protein, the blood accumulated in intestines of the tick, which died of hunger. If the vaccination development will be successful, the parasites could lose their appetite.