Malaria

Results from a trial testing a new malaria vaccine have revealed an impressive 77 percent efficacy, higher than any prior vaccine trialled. The vaccine is the first to reach a WHO goal of at least 75 percent efficacy and a larger trial is now underway.

Researchers at the Burnet Institute have examined the potential to attack malaria infection before it gets to the liver – as soon as it enters the bloodstream from a mosquito bite – and they've identified an important mechanism for vaccines to target.

It can be difficult to determine if someone has malaria – enough so, that many people who don't even have the disease end up being treated for it. A new technique, however, could make diagnosis much easier and more reliable.

Genetic engineering has been proposed as a way to deal with the deadly mosquito, and a new project by Texas A&M AgriLife Research is looking to enable risk-free "test runs" of such genetic changes that are automatically deleted after a period of time.

Engineers at Rice University have designed a new bandage-like microneedle device that could greatly improve access to malaria testing, with the ability to detect key markers of the disease without drawing any blood at all.

A type of volcanic glass, perlite is frequently used as building insulation or a potting soil additive. According to a new study, though, it also works quite well at killing malaria-causing mosquitos.

Several years ago, we heard how scientists were looking at eradicating malaria-carrying mosquitoes by making the females infertile. Now they're going a step further, by eliminating the females altogether.

A newly discovered microbe identified in wild mosquito populations in Kenya has been found to protect the insects from malaria infection and could be recruited for malaria control strategies to limit transmission of the disease into human populations.

Genetic studies of the West African mosquitoes Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii show that binding proteins on the insects' legs help them to avoid bed nets that have been treated with mosquito-killing chemicals.

Not only do bed nets help protect people against mosquitoes, but if those nets are treated with an insecticide, they also kill insects that touch them. A simple new technology could make such nets more lethal to mosquitoes, yet also safer for humans.

Researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology have fine-tuned an artificial leaf design and used it to produce drugs for the first time.

Antibiotics aren’t picky, blasting good and bad bacteria alike and messing up the delicate balance of the gut microbiome. But now researchers have developed a more targeted approach, with drugs that are able to zero in on specific species of bacteria.