Scientists find new weapon in fight against malaria

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — Scientists have blocked the sexual development of the malaria parasite in the laboratory, opening the possibility of a drug that could sharply reduce the disease's spread, according to a new study.

When a mosquito bites an infected human, it sucks up the gametes, or sex cells, of the malaria parasite at the same time that it feasts on the blood.

The sexual cycle of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite continues inside the mosquito, producing cells that are transmitted in its saliva the next time the insect draws human blood with its needle-like proboscis.

The gametes do not provoke malaria's terrible symptoms, but settle in the liver where they eventually give rise to the parasite that does.

A team of researchers at the London school of...