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Genetic material in blood cells may affect malaria parasites
ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2012) Researchers at Duke University Medical Center may finally have discovered why people with sickle cell disease get milder cases of malaria than individuals who have normal red blood cells. In a finding that has eluded scientists for years, Duke researchers discovered that genetic material in red blood cells may help alter parasite activity via a novel mechanism that alters parasite gene regulation.
16th-century Korean mummy provides clue to hepatitis B virus genetic code
ScienceDaily (May 29, 2012) The discovery of a mummified Korean child with relatively preserved organs enabled an Israeli-South Korean scientific team to conduct a genetic analysis on a liver biopsy which revealed a unique hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotype C2 sequence common in Southeast Asia. Additional analysis of the ancient HBV genomes may be used as a model to study the evolution of chronic hepatitis B and help understand the spread of the virus, possibly from Africa to East-Asia. It also may shed further light on the migratory pathway of hepatitis B in the Far East from China and Japan to Korea as well as to other regions in Asia and Australia where it is a major cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Emergence of artemisinin resistance on Thai-Myanmar border raises spectre of untreatable malaria
ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2012) Evidence that the most deadly species of malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum , is becoming resistant to the front line treatment for malaria on the border of Thailand and Myanmar was reported in The Lancet April 5.This increases concern that resistance could now spread to India and then Africa as resistance to other antimalarial drugs has done before. Eliminating malaria might then prove impossible.
Protection from severe malaria explained
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2011) Why do people with a hereditary mutation of the red blood pigment hemoglobin (as is the case with sickle-cell anemia prevalent in Africa) not contract severe malaria?
New bacterium found causing tick-borne illness ehrlichiosis in Wisconsin and Minnesota
ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2011) A new tick-borne bacterium infecting humans with ehrlichiosis has been discovered in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Malaria parasites use camouflage to trick immune defences of pregnant women
ScienceDaily (July 11, 2011) Researchers from Rigshospitalet — Copenhagen University Hospital — and the University of Copenhagen have discovered why malaria parasites are able to hide from the immune defences of expectant mothers, allowing the parasite to attack the placenta. The discovery is an important part of the efforts researchers are making to understand this frequently fatal disease and to develop a vaccine.
Medical Parasitology
Medical Parasitology Landes Bioscience | 2009 | ISBN: 1570596956 | 318 pages | PDF | 3,8 MB Infections caused by parasites are still a major global health problem.
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