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.
The Plasmodium parasite, which transmits malaria to humans through infected mosquitos, triggers changes in human genes that alter the body's adaptive immune response to malarial infections, according to a team of researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi.
Even when a person suffering from malaria is burning up with fever and too sick to function, the tiny blood-eating parasites lurking inside them continue to flourish, relentlessly growing and multiplying as they gobble up the host's red blood cells.
In the last 10 years, scientists have designed a range of novel tools that regulate the balance of genetic inheritance.
Researchers from Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT's research enterprise in Singapore, have discovered a new way to manufacture human red blood cells (RBCs) that cuts the culture time by half compared to existing methods and uses novel sorting and purification methods that are faster, more precise and less costly.
The first cell atlas of mosquito immune cells recently created by researchers can help interpret how mosquitoes combat various infections, including malaria.
The release of massive amounts of proteins called cytokines can lead to some of the most severe symptoms of COVID-19.
Alicyclic compounds are groups of organic chemical compounds that have led to the development of a number of medications.
Preeclampsia is globally a leading cause of illness and deaths among mothers and their babies. This severe pregnancy disorder occurs in up to five percent of all pregnancies.
But there is still an opportunity to substantially reduce the death toll by prioritizing the most critical services, specifically antiretroviral therapy for HIV, timely TB diagnosis and treatment, and provision of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets for malaria, researchers say.
Human papilloma viruses (HPVs) - a common group of viruses known to cause cervical cancers - may also have a causal role in prostate cancer, according to a literature review published in the open access journal Infectious Agents and Cancer, supporting the case for universal HPV vaccination.
New research from the Francis Crick Institute has found how the malaria parasite protects itself from toxic compounds in red blood cells.
Parasite infections are a constant presence for many people who live in tropical regions, particularly in less industrialized areas.
The parasites responsible for malaria seem to march to their own beat.The mystery behind the molecular basis of how these parasites synch their rhythm in replication to the host's clock-driven rhythms has been solved.
New research from University of Alberta microbiologists has shed new light on how the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)--one of the most common viral infections--breaks into our cells to cause infection.
Some of the most essential processes on the planet involves water and energy entering and leaving cells.
Pancreatic cancer cells use a normal waste removal process to hide tags on their surfaces that would otherwise let the immune system destroy them, a new study finds. Published online April 22 in Nature, the study results help to answer a longstanding question: why are pancreatic cancers so resistant to immunotherapies, which use the body's own immune defenses to fight cancer?
Researchers from North Carolina State University and Collaborations Pharmaceuticals have created a free-to-use database of 14,000 known macrolactones - large molecules used in drug development - which contains information about the molecular characteristics, chemical diversity and biological activities of this structural class.
In recent years, RNA molecules, with the ability to affect or turn off pathogenic genes, have become promising drug candidates in several areas.
New research from entomologists at UC Davis clears a potential obstacle to using CRISPR-Cas9 "gene drive" technology to control mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and Zika.
The parasite causing the most severe form of human malaria uses proteins to make red blood cells sticky, making it harder for the immune system to destroy it.