Scientists have cracked the genetic code and predicted some high priority drug targets for the blood parasite Schistosoma haematobium, which is linked to bladder cancer and HIV/ AIDS and causes the insidious urogenital disease schistosomiasis haematobia in more than 112 million people in Africa.

In the complicated life cycle of ancient flatworms that cause schistosomiasis, Case Western Reserve University researchers have identified a gene activator crucial to development of the parasites within humans – a potential target for a vaccine.

Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have for the first time identified a 'programmed cell death' pathway in parasitic worms that could one day lead to new treatments for one of the world's most serious and prevalent diseases.

Mummies from along the Nile are revealing how age-old irrigation techniques may have boosted the plague of schistosomiasis, a water-borne parasitic disease that infects an estimated 200 million people today.

Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have discovered a caste of genetically identical "warrior worms" –– members of a parasitic fluke species that invades the California horn snail.