News (Scientific)

Researchers have discovered that the Plasmodium parasites responsible for malaria rely on a human liver cell protein for their development into a form capable of infecting red blood cells and causing disease. The study suggests that targeting this human protein, known as CXCR4, could be a way to block the parasite's life cycle and prevent the development of malaria.

Viruses, spread through mosquito bites, cause human illnesses such as dengue fever, Zika and yellow fever. A new control technique harnesses a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia that blocks replication of viruses and breaks the cycle of mosquito-borne disease, according to an international team of researchers.

A public health, police, and military partnership to reduce the mosquito population in Sri Lanka resulted in a more than 50% reduction in dengue, as well as cost savings, finds a new study.

The solution to the problem of increasing drug resistance among malaria-causing parasites could come from the North, according to a new study. A team successfully synthesized molecules discovered in a microscopic fungus from Nunavut and demonstrated their in vitro efficacy against the parasite responsible for malaria.

Effective methods of controlling mosquito populations are needed to help lower the worldwide burden of mosquito-borne diseases including Zika, chikungunya, and dengue. Now, researchers have described a new statistical framework that can be used to assess mosquito control programs over broad time and space scales.

Researchers describe the first trial outside the laboratory of a transgenic approach to combating malaria. The study shows that a naturally occurring fungus engineered to deliver a toxin to mosquitoes safely reduced mosquito populations by more than 99% in a screen-enclosed, simulated village setting in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Feeding mosquitoes sugar makes them less attracted to humans, a response that is regulated by the protein vitellogenin, according to a new study.

A study which analyzed 15 years of mosquito surveillance data shows Iowa's western counties experience a higher abundance of the species thought to most commonly carry West Nile virus. Culex tarsalis, the mosquito species most often implicated in West Nile transmission, usually becomes most active in early September. The data support similar findings in Nebraska and South Dakota.

In people with chronic malaria, certain metabolic systems in the blood change to support a long-term host-parasite relationship, a finding that is key to eventually developing better detection, treatment and eradication of the disease, according to new research.

Researchers found significant delays in reporting human cases of West Nile virus, hampering real-time forecasting of the potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease.

Researchers have found that the dengue fever mosquito common to north and central Queensland poses the greatest danger of spreading the Zika virus in Australia. The researchers showed that not only was the dengue mosquito effective at transmitting Zika, the virus was also in the mosquitoes' reproductive organs. This finding suggests that Zika could persist in mosquito populations by females passing it to their offspring.

The loss of memory and cognitive function known to afflict survivors of septic shock is the result of a sugar that is released into the blood stream and enters the brain during the life-threatening condition.

A new analysis identifies African regions where ivermectin administration to livestock would have the greatest impact on malaria transmission. The results point to West Africa, below the Sahel, where malaria prevalence is very high.

Public health officials could soon be able to detect viruses in mosquitoes in the wild much more quickly and easily -- thanks to the insect equivalent of a urine test. A new study shows that two kinds of commonly used mosquito traps can be readily modified to collect mosquito excreta, or liquid waste droplets, to be tested for signs of viruses.

Mosquito-borne viruses, such as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika, already threaten over a billion people globally. A study predicts that climate change and rising global temperatures will lead to both increased and new exposures to humans of diseases carried by mosquito vectors Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus.

Female mosquitoes are known to rely on an array of sensory information to find people to bite, picking up on carbon dioxide, body odor, heat, moisture, and visual cues. Now researchers have discovered how mosquitoes pick up on acidic volatiles found in human sweat.

Researchers have developed an innovative method for analyzing the genome of the Wolbachia bacterium. This endosymbiotic bacterium infects more than 70 percent of insects and is capable of influencing insect transmission of pathogens such as dengue or Zika virus.

Few novel drugs have been developed to treat neglected diseases in recent decades, Brazilian researchers warn.

Protecting houses against mosquitoes with netting window screens can suppress malaria vector populations and dramatically reduce human parasite infection prevalence, according to new research.

Researchers have identified a possible new therapeutic strategy using two types of drug inhibitors at once to treat one of the world's deadliest cancers.