Bloomberg Philanthropies Supported Research Yields Promising Results for Genetic Weapons Against Malaria
In separate studies, researchers test bacteria that suppresses development of malaria parasite, genetic modification that boosts mosquito immune systems.
Two new papers by researchers at the Malaria Research Institute at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health report successes for highly promising strategies against malaria, a disease that kills more than 400,000 people each year, mostly children age 5 and under in sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria is spread by female Anopheles mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite. One promising way to prevent malaria, in addition to traditional approaches such as bed nets and insecticide, is to modify the mosquitoes so they are no longer capable of spreading the parasite to humans.
The studies discovered different ways by which resistance to the malaria parasite can spread into a mosquito population, potentially paving the way for the development of self-propagating malaria control strategies....