Latest Apicomplexa Stories
Idol Finalists Jason Castro (Season 7), Melinda Doolittle (Season 6) and Elliott Yamin (Season 5) will meet with Members of Congress on Wednesday, March 7 NEW YORK, March 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, Malaria No More, a nonprofit organization determined to help end malaria deaths in Africa, will bring former American Idol finalists Jason Castro (Season 7, 4th place), Melinda Doolittle (Season 6, 3rd place) and Elliott Yamin (Season 5, 3rd place) to Washington, D.C. to...
A chemically altered osteoporosis drug may be useful in fighting malaria, researchers report in a new study. Unlike similar compounds tested against other parasitic protozoa, the drug readily crosses into the red blood cells of malaria-infected mice and kills the malaria parasite. The drug works at very low concentrations with no observed toxicity to the mouse. The researchers found the drug by screening a library of about 1,000 compounds used in previous efforts to target an important...
[ Watch the Video ] Repellant overwhelms their odor sensors, scaring them away In a small, narrow, temperature-controlled lab room at Vanderbilt University live some of the most deadly and dangerous animals in the world. "These are Anopheles mosquitoes that still think that they're in Central Africa. We won't tell them any different," says Laurence Zwiebel, professor of molecular biology and pharmacology. Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes can be killers. In warmer climates, the...
Scientists have discovered a new target in their fight against the devastating global disease 'malaria' thanks to the discovery of a new protein involved in the parasite's life cycle. The research has uncovered a vital player in the sexual phase of the malaria parasite's reproduction which could prove an effective target for new treatments to stop the disease in its tracks. The scientists from The University of Nottingham's School of Biology, with collaborators from the Universities of...
In this week's PLoS Medicine, Michael Delves of Imperial College London, UK and colleagues compare the activity of 50 current and experimental antimalarials against liver, sexual blood, and mosquito stages of selected human and nonhuman parasite species, including Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium berghei, and Plasmodium yoelii. These results provide a valuable guide to help researchers decide which drugs and compounds show most promise as potential future antimalarial drugs for blocking the...
New research from the University of Melbourne shows how the malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum) changes into a banana shape before sexual reproduction, a finding that could provide targets for vaccine or drug development and may explain how the parasite evades the human immune system. The work was conducted by an Australian research team led by Dr Matthew Dixon and PhD student Megan Dearnley from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bio21 Institute at the University...
A study of almost 3,800 pregnancies has provided the most accurate and direct evidence to date that malaria infection reduces early foetal growth. Low birth weight is the most important risk factor for neonatal mortality in developing countries. The research, carried out on the border of Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), highlights the importance of preventing malaria in pregnancy. According to the World Malaria Report 2011, malaria killed an estimated 655,000 people in 2010. It is caused by...
May bring them into human homes, bridging "infection gap" between people and wildlife Domestic cats, wild bobcats and pumas that live in the same area share the same diseases. And domestic cats may bring them into human homes, according to results of a study of what happens when big and small cats cross paths. Initial results of the multi-year study are published today in the scientific journal PLoS One by a group of 14 authors. The joint National Science Foundation (NSF) and...
In this week's PLoS Medicine, Teun Bousema of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK and colleagues argue that targeting malaria "hotspots," small groups of households at a substantially increased risk of malaria transmission, is a highly efficient way to reduce malaria transmission at all levels of transmission intensity. The authors state: "Malaria hotspots appear to maintain malaria transmission in low transmission seasons and are the driving force for transmission in...
(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Malaria is a parasite disease that is passed from one human to another by the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. The parasites enter the blood stream and infect red blood cells. The disease involves shaking, chills, high fevers, anemia, and flu-like symptoms. There are approximately 300-500 million cases of malaria each year and more than 1 million people die from it, according to the United States National Library of Medicine. Although most cases are...
