Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite called Plasmodium - when infected mosquitoes bite the human body, the parasites multiply in the liver, and then infect red blood cells. Even though this potentially fatal disease can be prevented and cured, each year 350-500 million cases of malaria still occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in Africa south of the Sahara, where one in every five (20%) childhood deaths is due to the effects of the disease.
Malaria is so common in Africa because a lack of resources and political instability have prevented the building of solid malaria control programs. Experts say an African child has on average between 1.6 and 5.4 episodes of malaria fever each year and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) as many as half of the world's population are at risk of malaria mainly in the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries and every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria.
Over the past two decades, new technologies have helped scientists generate a vast amount of biological data. Large-scale experiments in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and cytometry can produce enormous quantities of data from a given cellular or multicellular system.
The study on Odyssean malaria reveals increasing airport and luggage transmission of Plasmodium, emphasizing the importance of monitoring in Europe.
A single shift of a parasite from one host species to another can trigger catastrophic infectious disease outbreaks. Despite this, scientists continue to debate the role of species diversity in natural environments on the spread of these parasites.
The study identifies AgApyrase as a key protein in mosquito saliva, enhancing Plasmodium transmission by regulating blood clot breakdown and immune response.
A high-pitched buzzing sound in your ear is an unmistakable sign that a female mosquito is out on the hunt -; for they, not males, drink blood. Hearing that tone might make you turn to try to swat the pest. But for a male mosquito, that tone means it's time to mate.
While a mosquito bite is often no more than a temporary bother, in many parts of the world it can be scary. One mosquito species, Aedes aegypti, spreads the viruses that cause over 100,000,000 cases of dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and other diseases every year. Another, Anopheles gambiae, spreads the parasite that causes malaria. The World Health Organization estimates that malaria alone causes more than 400,000 deaths every year. Indeed, their capacity to transmit disease has earned mosquitoes the title of deadliest animal.
Genetically engineered human skin bacteria can make mice less attractive to mosquitoes for 11 days. Mosquitoes transmit a host of deadly diseases, including malaria, West Nile, dengue, yellow fever, and Zika.
Researchers have gained new knowledge of how drugs bind to connexin molecules. These molecules form channels that allow neighboring cells to send direct messages to one another.
Researchers from the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), have discovered a link between malaria parasites’ ability to develop resistance to antimalarial drugs – specifically artemisinin (ART) – through a cellular process called transfer Ribonucleic acid (tRNA) modification.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a wide range of environments, each presenting unique challenges to human survival. Highlanders and lowlanders of PNG are striking examples of populations facing distinct environmental stress.
A team of scientists is urging colleagues worldwide to participate in what they refer to as “pathogen prospecting,” which involves locating archival mosquito specimens in collections and museums and examining them for pathogens that could have transmitted malaria to humans while feeding on their blood.
T1-spanin's superior antibacterial activity against various strains offers a breakthrough in phage therapy, addressing the global threat of drug resistance.
According to a recent study, people in ancient Eastern Arabia seem to have been resistant to malaria once agriculture arrived in the area about 5,000 years ago.
While combing through the human genome in 2007, computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti made a discovery that would transform her research career.
Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered a previously unknown ability of a group of immune system cells, known as Atypical B cells (ABCs), to fight infectious diseases such as malaria.
The bacteria and microorganisms that live within the human body -; the microbiota -; can impact human health, disease risk and even how the body absorbs medications, but the details of these processes are unclear.
For the first time, a valuable chemical extracted from the soapbark tree and utilized as a major component in vaccinations has been duplicated in a different plant host, providing the vaccine industry with hitherto unheard-of potential.
For the first time, scientists have identified a single-celled microbe that can protect corals from ocean warming-related events like bleaching.
Scientists have discovered new strains of malaria-causing parasites in Ethiopia that are both resistant to current treatments and evade detection by common diagnostic tests—a development that could increase malaria cases and deaths while making eradicating the disease even more difficult.
Following World Mosquito Day, we spoke with Dr. Michael Santos from GeneConvene Global Collaborative about using genetically engineered mosquitoes to help tackle malaria and how the Collaborative supports informed decision-making regarding this potentially game-changing technique.
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