malaria

Starving Malaria in Red Blood Cells

Understanding How Parasite Feeds May Lead to New Treatments

red blood cells

World Malaria Day, commemorated annually on April 25, highlights the need to end an infectious disease that sickens nearly 250 million people around the world each year, killing more than 600,000 in regions where it is common. Children are particularly susceptible to its deadly effects.

Unfortunately, there is still no highly effective vaccine against malaria, so management is mostly limited to preventive measures like bed nets and medications that treat the infection, which must be taken over an extended period to effectively treat the disease and stop it from spreading. However, the speed with which the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, adapts to antimalarial drugs has created a critical need for novel treatments — a need that IRP researchers led by Joshua Zimmerberg, M.D., Ph.D., are taking a unique approach to filling.

Mosquitos With Human Gene Hinder Malaria Transmission

Genetically Modified Insects Could Help Curb Infections

transgenic mosquitos with blue, red, and green eyes

“Scientists create genetically modified mosquitos” sounds like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie, but it’s actually the reality in labs all around the world. Researchers are producing these ‘transgenic’ mosquitos in the hopes that the bugs could help combat the scourge of malaria, and in a recent study, IRP scientists demonstrated that their unique strategy in this realm has strong potential to accomplish that goal.

Leading the Charge Against Infectious Disease

Government Awards Recognize H. Clifford Lane’s Four Decades of Research Achievements

Dr. H. Clifford Lane

The remarkable career of H. Clifford Lane, M.D., might have gone very differently if a NIH scientist hadn’t accidentally eavesdropped on Dr. Lane’s conversation with a colleague in 1979. After hearing Dr. Lane mention that he had missed the deadline to apply for a position at NIH, the NIH researcher made some calls and discovered a spot there had just opened up — one that was perfect for Dr. Lane, who would spend the ensuing decades conducting life-saving research to understand and combat some of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases.

Now the Clinical Director at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), Dr. Lane has been named a finalist for the 2022 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals’ Career Achievement Award in recognition of his crucial contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS, Ebola, COVID-19, and other illnesses. Also known as the “Sammies,” the awards recognize federal employees who are “breaking down barriers, overcoming huge challenges, and getting results.”

IRP’s Carolina Barillas-Mury Elected to National Academy of Medicine

NIH Researcher Recognized for Important Insights Into Malaria Transmission

Dr. Carolina Barillas-Mury

In many parts of the world, the high-pitched buzz of a mosquito is a harbinger of more than an annoying itch — it’s a warning of possible malaria infection. Malaria, a disease spread by mosquitos that causes high fever and flu-like illness, is a serious risk for nearly half of the world’s population. According to the World Health Organization, there were 241 million cases of malaria and 627,000 deaths in 2020 alone. More than 95 percent of them occurred in Africa.

Efforts to combat malaria using measures like preventative treatments and environmental mitigation have helped to reduce infections and deaths over the past decade, but those improvements have recently plateaued, according to IRP Distinguished Investigator Carolina Barillas-Mury, M.D., Ph.D., section chief in the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Teaching an Old Vaccine New Tricks to Thwart Tuberculosis

The IRP’s Mario Roederer and Robert Seder Discuss the Science Behind the Headlines

Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, the cause of tuberculosis

Some say that if something’s not broken, then don’t fix it, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. At least, those were the thoughts of IRP senior investigators Mario Roederer, Ph.D., and Robert Alan Seder, M.D., who recently found that the century-old tuberculosis (TB) vaccine is far more effective when administered via injection into a vein (IV) rather than into the skin, which has long been the standard way it is given. This major breakthrough received extensive media coverage, including a story in the New York Times. We went Behind the Headlines to get the inside scoop on this potentially life-saving discovery.

Experimental Therapy Reverses Neurological Effects of Malaria

MRI brain scans of mice with (right) and without (left) cerebral malaria, indicating areas of damage to the blood-brain barrier

For Americans and others living outside the tropics, a mosquito bite is nothing more than an itchy inconvenience, but for billions of others, it can lead to a life-or-death battle with malaria. In some cases, the illness can wreak havoc on the brain. A new IRP study has used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to demonstrate that an investigational therapy can reverse that damage in mice.

Presidential NIH Visits: Bill Clinton, 1999

The NIH is "one of America's great citadels of hope, not only for our people, but also for the world," said President Bill Clinton at the dedication of the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center (VRC) on June 9, 1999.

President Bill Clinton with Senator Dale Bumpers at NIH VRC