The understanding of the malaria parasite, which seems to behave in a similar way to a virus, can help the development of new treatment methods, both in the stage that causes the disease in humans, and the phase in which it is carried by the intermediate host, the Anopheles mosquito. Research is also continuing into the genes behind the immune system of the mosquito, which actively fights against the malaria parasite.
Stephen Pincock Australian scientists have identified a potential new way of combating the global scourge of malaria, by pinpointing eight genes that help the disease-causing parasite remodel our red blood cells.
Malaria kills up to three million people every year, mostly in tropical parts of the world. The disease is spread by mosquitoes that inject victims with microscopic parasites that infect healthy red blood cells parasites cause radical changes to the structure of the blood cells, hijacking them to produce scores of offspring that go on to infect other cells "It's like remodeling a house so you can live in it and raise a family," said researcher Professor Alan Cowman from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research His group's research will be published this week in the journal Cell. When the team disrupted just one of the genes, they showed that the infected cells no longer stuck to the walls of blood vessels "It really is a big step in understanding the parasite itself," |
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