Malaria News and Research

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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.

Dengue Viruses Subvert Mosquito Biology to Tamp Down Human Immune Responses

The saliva of mosquitoes infected with dengue viruses contains a substance that thwarts the human immune system and makes it easier for people to become infected with these potentially deadly viruses, new research reveals.

5 Apr 2023

Deactivating mosquito sperm to control populations of Culex

New UC Riverside research makes it likely that proteins responsible for activating mosquito sperm can be shut down, preventing them from swimming to or fertilizing eggs.

22 Mar 2023

Climate change likely to help mosquitoes reach colder parts of the continent

Based on data that span the past 120 years, scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that the mosquitoes responsible for transmitting malaria in Africa are spreading deeper into southern Africa and to higher elevations than previously recorded. The researchers estimate that Anopheles mosquito populations in sub-Saharan Africa have gained an average of 6.5 meters (21 feet) of elevation per year, and the southern limits of their ranges moved south of the equator by 4.7 kilometers (nearly 3 miles) per year.

15 Feb 2023

New platform to study the feeding behavior of mosquitoes

If watching animals feast on human blood for 30-plus hours isn't your idea of fun, don't worry. The robot can do it.

10 Feb 2023

Effective new drugs to reduce the massive number of malaria cases

Malaria is known as a disastrous disease, with 247 million cases and 619,000 deaths reported in 2021 alone.

From The University of New South Wales (UNSW) 31 Jan 2023

Detecting the extent of natural selection over time

Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, the CNRS, and the Collège de France researchers have employed paleogenomics to trace 10,000 years of human immune system evolution. They examined the genomes of over 2,800 individuals who lived in Europe over the past 10 millennia.

From Institut Pasteur 18 Jan 2023

Molecular responses of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to hydroquinine

Researchers investigating the effects of an organic compound on drug-resistant bacteria found how it can impede and destroy a germ that causes significant illness or even death in some situations.

1 Nov 2022

The exchange of nutrients between the mother and fetus mirrored by ‘placenta-on-a-chip’

Plasmodium falciparum infections can result in placental malaria, which can have serious consequences for both mother and child. Nearly 200,000 newborn fatalities annually from placental malaria, primarily as a result of low birth weight, as well as 10,000 maternal deaths.

27 Sep 2022

Hydroquinine inhibits and kills several strains of clinically important bacteria

A naturally occurring substance known as hydroquinine has been discovered by researchers to have bacterial killing ability against a variety of pathogens.

2 Sep 2022

Scientists link the function of specific domain of proteins to a cancer trigger in humans

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have definitively linked the function of a specific domain of proteins important in plant-microbe biology to a cancer trigger in humans, knowledge that had eluded scientists for decades.

6 Jul 2022

Researchers developed a weapon to combat drug-resistant malaria

As the efficiency of conventional antimalarial medications deteriorates, a novel approach to combating malaria that sees the disease turn against itself could provide a viable treatment for the hundreds of millions of people affected globally every year.

6 Jun 2022

New software device makes genetic information analysis simpler

Researchers from Texas Biomedical Research Institute and Tulane University have created a new software device that makes analyzing genetic data about a host and its microbiome at the very same time simpler, quicker, and less expensive.

10 May 2022

National DNA Day 2022: an interview with Professor Matthew Cobb

To celebrate National DNA Day 2022, we spoke to science communicator Professor Matthew Cobb.

From The University of Manchester 25 Apr 2022

Researchers use CRISPR gene editing tool to analyze globin gene switching

CRISPR gene editing—a form of “molecular scissors”—was used by UNSW researchers to investigate how deletions in one section of the genome might impact the expression of surrounding genes.

From The University of New South Wales (UNSW) 19 Apr 2022

Edinburgh scientists solve century-old evolutionary puzzle about malaria parasites

Scientists have solved a 100-year-old mystery about the evolutionary links between malaria parasites that infect humans and chimpanzees.

7 Apr 2022

Microbial communities with auxotrophs more likely to have increased drug tolerance, study finds

Research from the Francis Crick Institute has revealed a key mechanism which increases tolerance to drugs amongst microbial communities.

22 Mar 2022

Improving the long-term effectiveness of TB vaccine in mice

Briefly blocking a key molecule when administering the only approved vaccine for tuberculosis vastly improves long-term protection against the devastating disease in mice, researchers from Texas Biomedical Research Institute report this week in the Journal of Immunology.

14 Mar 2022