malaria

Genome of deadly amoeba shows surprising complexity, evidence of lateral gene transfer

...as many as 100,000 deaths a year -- second only to malaria as a cause of morbidity and mortality from a protist. The disease caused by E. histolytica is called amebiasis. The sequencing of E. histolytica was a collaborative effort led by The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, MD, and by the...

Ecological destruction fuels emerging diseases

...s are coming from." In fact, while parasites like malaria are well known, we may have identified only a fraction of the total number of the world's parasites, and the prospect of cataloguing them poses a daunting technical challenge. Since the physical characteristics of many parasites are very similar, Dr....

Ancient olfaction protein is shared by many bugs, offering new pest control target

...ages corn and tobacco), and Anopheles gambiae, the malaria mosquito. When the medfly, moth, and mosquito versions (or "orthologues") of Or83b were expressed in fruit flies that were missing their own version of the gene, the flies' sense of smell was restored, arguing not only that the gene's sequence has be...

Spider Venom Could Yield Eco-Friendly Insecticides

...itial effectiveness of DDT in agricultural use and malaria eradication programs led many to view chemical insecticides as a panacea. But widespread use of the chemicals has boosted insects' resistance, even to increased dosages, while the environmental damage and human health risks associated with the chemic...

Scientists reveal molecular secrets of the malaria parasite

In an innovative project with implicationsfor malaria vaccine development, scientists have used genomics...roteomics and gene expression studies to trace how malaria parasitesevolve on a molecular level as they move between their hosts and insectvectors.That focus o...

Simple drug has the potential to save many lives threatened by malaria

A simple drug, given to children with severe malaria before they reach hospital, has the potential to s...'s BMJ. Every year over a million children die of malaria in Africa. The majority of fatalities occur outside hospital, especially in rural areas. For those w...

Examination of internal 'wiring' of yeast, worm, and fly reveals conserved circuits

...ce of every gene in the genomes of everything from malaria pathogens and mosquitoes to mouse and human. Databases of genomic information have been combined with databases that list the precise subunit sequence of proteins as well. Cross-species DNA and protein comparisons have become routine for all biologis...

Protein offers way to stop microscopic parasites in their tracks

...hem develop drugs to stop or slow cell invasion by malaria and other parasites known as apicomplexans. Resul...r into other apicomplexan parasites, which include malaria and Cryptosporidium. Malaria, which is spread by mosquito bites, kills at least 1 million people per...

Molecular models advance the fight against malaria

...h from Dartmouth Medical School, demonstrating how malaria parasites form mutations that make them stubbornly...d successfully introduced five mutations that make malaria resistant to the anti-malarial drug, atovaquone. The study, featured as the cover story of the April...

Reducing malarial transmission in Africa

There are 300 million cases of malaria each year worldwide, causing one million deaths. A...test challenges facing Africa in the fight against malaria is drug resistance; resistance to chloroquine (CQ), the cheapest and most widely used antimalarial, ...

WHO Warns Of Increased Risk Of Vector-borne Diseases In Tsunami-affected Areas

...ut increased risk of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever across tsunami-affected areas in ...ies in the region are endemic for dengue fever and malaria except the Maldives, which has no malaria cases but does have dengue cases. With the onset of the ra...

Sickle cell and protection against malaria

...om Kilifi, Kenya, show that the protection against malaria given by carrying the gene for sickle cell haemogl... and then declined. It is estimated that cases of malaria causes approximately a million deaths yearly, the overwhelming number of which are young children in...

New Estimates For The Causes Of Child Deaths Worldwide

...e to six causes: pneumonia (19%), diarrhoea (18%), malaria (8%), neonatal sepsis or pneumonia (10%), preterm ...rrhoea, and undernutrition in all WHO regions, and malaria in the Africa region. In all regions, deaths in the neonatal period, primarily due to preterm delive...

Measles Deaths Worldwide Drop By Nearly 40% Over Five Years

...revent measles and polio, mosquito nets to prevent malaria and de-worming tablets. Millions of children still remain at risk from measles. Malnourished and un-immunized children under five years of age, especially infants, are at high risk of contracting measles and are more vulnerable to death. The vast ma...

Natural Killers Could Lead to New Hepatitis Treatments

...is can be a reaction to viruses, parasites such as malaria or other infections. Learning to “call off?the NKT cell's pursuit and attack could offer a treatment for hepatitis and associated complications. The researchers, led by Dan Littman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at New York Universi...

Aircraft Cabin Ventilation Influences The Transmission Of Diseases In-flight

...sinsecting aircraft travelling from countries with malaria and other vector-borne disease only five countries currently do so (Australia, Caribbean, India, Kiribati, and Uruguay). The authors believe the aviation industry and medical community should educate the general public on health issues related to ai...

Cancer drug slows poxvirus in mice

...y transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies. ### Reference: PM Reeves et al. Disabling poxvirus pathogenesis b...

UN: World in big ecological mess

...influence the abundance of human pathogens such as malaria and cholera, as well as the risk of emergence of new diseases. Malaria, for example, accounts for 11 per cent of the disease burden in Africa and had it been eliminated 35 years ago, the continent's gross domestic product would have increased by $100...

Malaria mechanism revealed

... the molecular structure of a protein that enables malaria parasites to invade red blood cells, researchers h... "Niraj Tolia [the first author of the study] had malaria when he was young. So when he joined my lab as a graduate student, it didn't take long for me to con...

Malaria killing a million a year

The prevention and treatment of malaria has made progress since 2000, but an annual death ...arasitic disease makes a comeback, the first joint malaria report from the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) says. The report...

Gene expands malaria's invasion options

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum uses different pathways to invade red blood cells, evading the body's immune system and complicating efforts to create effective vaccines against the disease. A research team led by Australia's Alan F. Cowman, an inte...

University of Nevada, Reno research team discovers hormone that causes malaria mosquito to urinate

...covery has implications for control of mosquitoes, malaria and West Nile Virus Prior to coming to Nevada 16 ...ily functions. While researching the genome of the malaria mosquito, Schooley discovered two different types of diuretic hormones similar to those from other i...

Measuring hidden parasites in falciparum malaria

A new technique for measuring hidden malaria parasites and assessing severity of disease is des... body. The researchers estimated total amount of malaria parasites in the body by measuring a protein--Histidine-rich protein 2 (PfHRP2)--which is liberated ...

Old drug, new tricks: Prospects for slashing the impact of malaria

A dramatic reduction in the impact of malaria is in prospect with a clinical drug trial to begin...t health benefits in the new application of an old malaria drug - at just 12 cents a dose. The project is supported by a AUD$3. 7 million grant to PNGIMR from ...

NHGRI Selects 13 More Organisms for Genome Sequencing

...is medically significant because it can harbor the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, and is the primary transmitter of the disease in Africa. Approximately 30 of 500 Anopheles species are known vectors of human malaria. Malaria afflicts up to 300 million people and kills more than 1 million people a y...

Possible treatment found for 'chemobrain'

...is medically significant because it can harbor the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, and is the primary transmitter of the disease in Africa. Approximately 30 of 500 Anopheles species are known vectors of human malaria. Malaria afflicts up to 300 million people and kills more than 1 million people a y...

Researchers discover how malaria parasite disperses from red blood cells

...elopment have determined the sequence in which the malaria parasite disperses from the red blood cells it inf...uane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. "The malaria parasite is growing resistant to the drugs used to treat it, and new knowledge is essential for deve...

Mosquitoes are more attracted to individuals infected with malaria

...ttracted to children with the infectious stages of malaria than to those infected with non-transmissible form... or to uninfected people. The question of whether malaria increases your chances of being bitten by a mosquito has long stalled scientists because of numerous...

DDT-resistant insects have additional genetic advantage that helps resistance spread

...ts effectiveness against the mosquito that spreads malaria and lice that carry typhus. DDT-resistant mosquitoes were first detected in India in 1959, and they have increased so rapidly that when a local spray program is begun now, most mosquitoes become resistant in a matter of months rather than years. Wo...

Fighting malaria by manipulating mosquitoes' sense of smell

Combating the spread of malaria by manipulating the mosquitoes' sense of smell is ...will be developing a fundamentally new approach to malaria control that relies on powerful chemical repellents and attractants deployed in ways that can both i...

US/African project deciphers deadly parasite genome

...veral biochemical pathways that are present in the malaria parasite, suggesting that Theileria is more depend...he 2002 paper on the genome of the deadliest human malaria parasite, says that several of the malaria parasite's metabolic pathways that Theileria lacks are fo...

Gene that helps mosquitoes fight off malaria parasite identified

...infection by the Plasmodium parasite, which causes malaria in humans. Anopheles mosquitoes transmit the malaria parasite to nearly 550 million people worldwide each year with these cases resulting in more than 2 ...

New GM mosquito sexing technique is step towards malaria control, report scientists

...tephensi, the mosquito responsible for much of the malaria in Asia. They engineered the mosquito larvae to express an enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). The modified larvae were mixed with normal larvae, and the researchers were able to identify the modified male mosquitoes by their fluorescent gonad...

Islands in the Genome Promote Speciation

..., Matthew Hahn, and Sergey Nuzhdin worked with the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae to uncover genes that may be driving speciation. A. gambiae exists in multiple forms that may be in the early stages of differentiating into separate species; on the other hand, they may be partially differentiated, co-exis...

Adult stem cells aid recovery in animal model of cerebral palsy

..., Matthew Hahn, and Sergey Nuzhdin worked with the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae to uncover genes that may be driving speciation. A. gambiae exists in multiple forms that may be in the early stages of differentiating into separate species; on the other hand, they may be partially differentiated, co-exis...

New malaria vaccine shows promise in early clinical trial

A malaria vaccine remains the most desired tool to combat the worsening malaria epidemic in many developing countries. Pierre Druilhe and colleagues (from the Institut Pasteur in P...

Researchers develop new method to help find deadly malaria parasite's Achilles heel

The most deadly malaria parasite has protein 'wiring' that differs markedl...estimated 1 million deaths per year worldwide from malaria has protein "wiring" that differs markedly from the cellular circuitry of other higher organisms, a ...

Birth defects: 8 million annually worldwide

...rited disease that confers some protection against malaria -- specifically, sickle cell, thalassemia, and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD). When two carriers of these diseases have offspring, there is a 25 percent chance that each child will receive both copies of the gene and be affected...

Researchers map of genetic variations implicated in disease

...s also pivotal in response to infection, including malaria and AIDS. Genes in the MHC can differ dramatically between people, and the differences among us affect medical events as diverse as tissue transplant rejection, arthritis, asthma and disease resistance. A detailed study of this region in different...

Malaria parasites develop in lymph nodes

...ive, real-time imaging study of the travels of the malaria parasite Plasmodium through mammalian tissue, rese...e bite. Their journey seemed to stop there, as the malaria parasites almost never appeared in lymph nodes farther away. Within about four hours of the mosquit...

Warming trend may contribute to malaria's rise

...lobal warming be contributing to the resurgence of malaria in the East African Highlands? A widely-cited stu... completely eradicated in many parts of the world, malaria still affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and has been on the rise in some highland reg...

Potential vaccine developed for deadly leishmaniasis disease

...euticals in Medford, Mass. ?is working on one such malaria vaccine that is in late-stage preclinical trials. Other candidate vaccines against anthrax and tuberculosis are at an earlier stage of development. One major drawback with carbohydrate vaccines is the difficulty in getting them to produce a strong i...

A new way of looking at molecular motors

...hat the molecular motors enabled toxoplasmosis and malaria parasites to force their way into human cells. The researchers say that although their research is theoretical and a long way from clinical applications, the new classification system will help other researchers address important biomedical puzzles...

Scientists develop malaria forecasting tool to predict disease risk

A new tool to predict epidemics of malaria up to five months in advance has been developed by... epidemic up to five months in advance of the peak malaria season ?the earliest point at which predictions have ever been made. The model will assist doctors ...

Genetically engineered mosquitoes show resistance to dengue fever virus

...ficant advances on genetic approaches to interrupt malaria parasite and dengue virus transmission by mosquitoes. He has received a number of international awards for his research. In 2005, he received a $19.7 million grant from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health to lead an international e...

UCLA paper examines how one disease may prevent another

...1948, British biologist J.B. Haldane proposed that malaria was an evolutionary force for selecting malaria-resistant genes. He suggested that those carrying the gene for sickle cell anemia were better able to survive in malaria-infected areas. Leprosy patients have severe immune defects and cutaneous anergy...

Oxidation defense in mosquitoes benefits malaria parasite

...on xanthurenic acid (XA) in Anopheles gambiae, the malaria carrying mosquitoes. XA plays a key role in the sexual reproduction of the malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum) in A. gambiae mosquitoes. Interfering with the formation of XA coul...

UGA study explains peaks and troughs of dengue epidemics

...on of other multi-strain diseases such as cholera, malaria and influenza. He calls a better understanding of such diseases, "one of the most important issues in public health and epidemiology in general." "Until now, it's been very much a single-host, single-pathogen type of framework," Rohani said. "Now w...

Malaria, potato famine pathogen share surprising trait

...e surprised to learn that the pathogen that causes malaria in humans and the microbe that caused the Irish po...gen will jump to humans, nor is it likely that the malaria parasite will start infecting plants. However, he said it's feasible to think that one day research...

Colombian frog believed extinct found alive

...uences, including an increase in illnesses such as malaria due to the disappearance of amphibians that feed on mosquitoes carrying the disease. An extinction crisis among amphibians indicates drastic environmental changes caused by human impact such as deforestation and global warming. ...

Movie spies on malaria parasite's sneaky behavior

...r centuries. Now, using real-time imaging to track malaria infections in live mice, researchers have discover...mino, at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, filmed the malaria parasite as it transitioned from infecting liver cells to infecting red blood cells. During this sta...

How bad is malaria anemia? It may depend on your genes

...ople whose red blood cells already are infected by malaria parasites. The parasite that causes malaria - known as plasmodium - is carried through blood by mosquito bites, and in parts of the world where ...

C-myc required by the immune system

...w us to improve therapeutic vaccines against, say, malaria or cancer. The unexpected finding is that this study is also a cautionary tale. Before we design new therapies that inactivate a gene product, which is an approach being considered for c-myc in cancer, we need to be very sure that we are not going to...

Knowledge of dendritic cells branches out

...ew cell to target specific infections such as HIV, malaria and influenza;certain cancers; and even autoimmune diseases. Dendritic cells (or "DC" ) are specialised white blood cells that patrol the body, searching for infections. DC seize and then internally break apart any infectiousorganisms that they find...

New treatment for severe malaria

The most dangerous form of malaria is difficult to treat and claims two million lives...ommon and life-threatening consequences of serious malaria infection. The diseases are caused when the malaria bacteria P.falciparium infects the red blood cel...

Malaria vaccine prompts victims' immune system to eliminate parasite from mosquitoes

...ental vaccine that could, theoretically, eliminate malaria from entire geographic regions, by eradicating the malaria parasite from an area's mosquitoes. The vaccine, so far tested only in mice, would prompt the immu...

Dragonfly's metabolic disease provides clues about human obesity

... that includes protozoa, which cause diseases like malaria and cryptosporidiosis. The dragonfly species that Marden and Schilder studied is Libellula pulchella. The microbes disrupting the dragonfly metabolism may hold clues for scientists looking for the root causes of metabolic diseases in humans, accord...

Twenty Years of Malaria Research: Outcomes and Perspectives

... region's refugee camps. The currently recommended malaria therapies (based on drug combinations including an...n is amongst the top ten most-cited researchers in malaria research and has been a key player in the fight against drug-resistant strains of the parasite. Op...

Faster, more accurate tuberculosis test developed

...od is comparable to testing currently done to read malaria smears. MODS is a simple, rapid test that the authors expect will have a major impact in developing countries where resources are limited. ...

Replacing insulin is top-ranked breakthrough foreseen for health in developing world

... new strains of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, malaria and other common diseases. The full Top 10 list is appended. About the study Some 44 international experts and clinicians from relevant fields ?three quarters of them from developing countries ?were canvassed using three rounds of the Delphi tec...