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.

New gene-drive technologies can help control crop pests

Robust new genetic engineering techniques have given researchers the ability to transform many sectors of global urgency.

From UC San Diego 8 Mar 2021

New software tool enables swift analysis of datasets generated from single-cell sequencing

A new software tool allows researchers to quickly query datasets generated from single-cell sequencing. Users can identify which cell types any combination of genes are active in.

4 Mar 2021

Study: Role of natural mosquito behavior on malaria transmission

Everyone knows 2 + 2 = 4, but what about mosquitoes plus malaria? Lauren Childs, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at Virginia Tech, says there's an equation for that too.

25 Feb 2021

New technology could improve antibody testing in a broad range of diseases

A global team of researchers has developed a new strategy for fast and reliable antibody tests, which can quantify the immune response induced by vaccination and reveal the timeline and stage of pathogen infection.

5 Feb 2021

Vaccine based on virus-like particle could generate antibodies to prevent malaria

An inexpensive, long-lasting and easy-to-administer vaccine against malaria could be a game-changer for millions of people living in countries where the mosquito-borne disease is endemic.

5 Feb 2021

New project on self-deleting gene technology takes aim at mosquito populations

To control mosquito populations and prevent them from transmitting diseases such as malaria, many researchers are pursuing strategies in mosquito genetic engineering. A new Texas A&M AgriLife Research project aims to enable temporary "test runs" of proposed genetic changes in mosquitoes, after which the changes remove themselves from the mosquitoes' genetic code.

29 Dec 2020

Researchers develop new method to produce artificial organelles in living yeast cells

Cells of higher organisms use cell organelles to separate metabolic processes from each other. This is how cell respiration takes place in the mitochondria, the cell’s power plants.

16 Nov 2020

Researchers outline the future effects of global warming on major cancers

Climate change will bring an acute toll worldwide, with rising temperatures, wildfires and poor air quality, accompanied by higher rates of cancer, especially lung, skin and gastrointestinal cancers, according to a new report from UC San Francisco.

6 Nov 2020

Affordable health care can reduce illegal logging, preserve biodiverse carbon sinks

Caring for people's health is a prescription for protecting rainforests, slowing climate change and creating significant monetary value, according to a new Stanford-led study.

27 Oct 2020

UNM researchers identify medications that could help fight COVID-19 infection

University of New Mexico researchers who combed through a "library" of previously approved drugs believe they have identified a medication with the potential to help speed a patient's recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

19 Oct 2020

New technology rapidly diagnoses sickle cell disease

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have developed a new way to diagnose diseases of the blood like sickle cell disease with sensitivity and precision and in only one minute.

16 Oct 2020

Dynamic map shows how immune cells fight microbes and remember future infections

Scientists have plotted the activity of an unlimited number of genes in the immune cells of mice over the course of an infection.

14 Oct 2020

Researchers trace neurons in mosquitoes that sense blood's distinctive flavor

It's one of the world's deadliest animals, and it has a taste for human blood: the mosquito. Mosquitoes spread diseases like malaria, dengue, and yellow fever that kill at least a half a million people each year. Now researchers are learning what humans taste like to mosquitoes, down to the individual neurons that sense blood's distinctive, delectable flavor.

13 Oct 2020

Researchers test the effect of hydroxychloroquine versus favipiravir in SARS-CoV-2−infected hamsters

Virologists at the KU Leuven Rega Institute have been working on two lines of SARS-CoV-2 research: searching for a vaccine to prevent infection, and testing existing drugs to see which one can reduce the amount of virus in infected people.

12 Oct 2020

Scientists shed light on immune evasion strategy used by malaria-causing parasite

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.

12 Oct 2020

Study finds how the malaria parasite can withstand fever's heat

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.

6 Oct 2020

Researchers develop new tools that control the balance of genetic inheritance

In the last 10 years, scientists have designed a range of novel tools that regulate the balance of genetic inheritance.

From UC San Diego 22 Sep 2020

SMART researchers discover a novel method to produce human red blood cells

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.

15 Sep 2020

New cell atlas can help control mosquito-borne diseases

The first cell atlas of mosquito immune cells recently created by researchers can help interpret how mosquitoes combat various infections, including malaria.

28 Aug 2020

Study reveals a mechanism for lower-quality immune response in patients with severe COVID-19

The release of massive amounts of proteins called cytokines can lead to some of the most severe symptoms of COVID-19.

From Harvard Medical School 20 Aug 2020