http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. An extract from a shrub often used for medicinal purposes in tropical Africa may have lethal effects against a dangerous parasite that transmits malaria, according to a multi-institutional team of scientists led by researchers at Virginia Tech. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-cancer-slowing-compound-combats-malaria.html Medical research Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:24:29 EST news281953462 Early diagnosis and treatment with antimalarial drugs (ACTs—artemisinin based combination treatments) has been linked to a reduction in malaria in the migrant population living on the Thai-Myanmar border, despite evidence of increasing resistance to ACTs in this location, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-resistance-line-anti-malarial-drugs-thai-myanmar.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:00:08 EST news281712880 A ground-breaking imaging system to track malarial infection of blood cells in real time has been created by a collaboration catalysed by the University's Physics of Medicine Initiative.After over a decade of research into malaria, biologists Dr Teresa Tiffert and Dr Virgilio Lew at the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience found their efforts to observe a key stage of the infection cycle severely hindered by the limits of available technology. An innovative collaboration with physicist Dr Pietro Cicuta at the Cavendish Laboratory and bio-imaging specialist Professor Clemens Kaminski in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology is now yielding new insights into this devastating disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-malaria-weak.html Medical research Thu, 07 Feb 2013 07:40:02 EST news279444409 One of the most insidious ways that parasitic diseases such as malaria and toxoplasmosis wreak their havoc is by hijacking their host's natural cellular processes, turning self against self. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University, led by Doron Greenbaum, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pharmacology at Penn, have identified the cell signaling pathway used by these parasites to escape from and destroy their host cells and infect new cells—pointing the way toward possible new strategies to stop these diseases in their tracks. The study appears in Cell, Host and Microbe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-malaria-parasites-host-cell-basis.html Medical research Wed, 16 Jan 2013 12:00:05 EST news277556076 (Medical Xpress)—One of the world's most devastating diseases is malaria, responsible for at least a million deaths annually, despite global efforts to combat it.  Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, working with collaborators from Drexel University, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Johns Hopkins University, have identified a protein in human blood platelets that points to a powerful new weapon against the disease. Their work was published in this months' issue of Cell Host and Microbe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-team-mimicking-natural-defense-malaria.html Medical research Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:20:02 EST news275845997 UCD researchers, Dr Anthony Chubb and PhD student Kevin O'Brien, working with Conway Fellow, Professor Denis Shields in the Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory (CASL) are harnessing the donated computational power of personal computers to find new targets for anti-malarial drugs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-malaria-personal-power.html Medical research Wed, 05 Sep 2012 06:49:22 EST news266046542 The malaria species rampant in the Asia-Pacific region has been a significant driver of evolution of the human genome, a new study has shown. An international team of researchers has shown that Plasmodium vivax malaria, the most prevalent malaria species in the Asia-Pacific, is a significant cause of genetic evolution that provides protection against malaria. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-benign-malaria-key-driver-human.html Medical research Tue, 04 Sep 2012 17:00:06 EST news265972255 The deadliest form of malaria is caused the protozoan Plasmodium falciparum. During its life-cycle in human blood, the parasite P. falciparum expresses unique proteins on the surface on infected blood cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-human-immunity-malaria.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:00:02 EST news263039631 Researchers have developed a new technique to identify hotspots of malaria parasite evolution and track the rise of malarial drug resistance, faster and more efficiently than ever before. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-methods-enable-large-scale-analysis-malaria.html Medical research Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:00:04 EST news258810582 Africa's deadliest malaria parasite has shown resistance in lab tests to one of the most powerful drugs on the market -- a warning of possible resistance to follow in patients, scientists said Friday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-early-malaria-drug-resistance-africa.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Fri, 27 Apr 2012 05:00:01 EST news254720222 Malaria infections among infants can be cut by up to 30 per cent when antimalarial drugs are given intermittently over a 12 month period, a three-year clinical trial in Papua New Guinea has shown. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-combination-drug-treatment-malaria-percent.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:48:54 EST news252578826 University of British Columbia researcher Hongshen Ma has developed a simple and accurate device to study malaria, a disease that currently affects 500 million people per year worldwide and claims a million lives. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-lab-chip-device-malaria.html Medical research Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:04:26 EST news249656536 Pyramax, a fixed-dose combination of pyronaridine and artesunate, becomes the first antimalarial to be granted a positive scientific opinion from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) under Article 58. This once daily, 3-day treatment is indicated for acute, uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum and blood-stage Plasmodium vivax malaria in adults and children over 20 kg. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-pyramax-positive-opinion-ema.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:40:48 EST news249043214 A study of almost 3,800 pregnancies has provided the most accurate and direct evidence to date that malaria infection reduces early foetal growth. Low birth weight is the most important risk factor for neonatal mortality in developing countries. The research, carried out on the border of Thailand and Myanmar (Burma), highlights the importance of preventing malaria in pregnancy. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-ultrasound-evidence-effect-malaria-fetal.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:07 EST news248008548 Researchers from Boston College have discovered a protein that plays a pivotal role in the progression of the deadly diseases toxoplasmosis and malaria and shown that its function could be genetically blocked in order to halt the progress of the parasite-borne illnesses, the team reports in the current edition of the journal Science. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-protein-deadly-disease-carrier.html Medical research Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:50:01 EST news245601139 (Medical Xpress) -- Malaria is a disease caused by parasites passed to humans via the bites of infected mosquitoes. Globally, the disease causes over a million deaths every year, and is especially rife in parts of Africa and Asia. The parasites infect red blood corpuscles (the hemoglobin-containing cells that carry oxygen around the body) and hijack the support structure within the cells. Some people are known to be naturally resistant to the serious effects of malaria, and scientists have wondered for decades exactly how their resistance functions. Now new research gone a long way to solving the mystery. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-mystery-resistance-malaria.html Medical research Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:20:03 EST news240240019 Using live but weakened malaria parasites as the basis of a vaccine represents a potentially encouraging anti-malaria strategy, according to results of follow-up animal studies performed after the conclusion of a recent clinical trial in humans. The research was conducted by scientists at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, working in concert with a large team of collaborators. The findings were published online September 8 in Science Express. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-weakened-malaria-parasites-basis-vaccine.html Medical research Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:00:16 EST news234708985 A human genetic variant associated with an almost 30 percent reduced risk of developing severe malaria has been identified. Scientists from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), Hamburg, and Kumasi University, Ghana, reveal that a variant at the FAS locus can prevent an excessive and potentially hazardous immune response in infected children. The study appears in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics on May 19. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-malaria-genetic-predisposition-cell-suicide.html Genetics Thu, 19 May 2011 17:33:28 EST news225045169