Indian-origin scientists lead fundamental malaria discovery

WASHINGTON: A team led by Indian-origin scientists has made a fundamental discovery in understanding how  malaria parasites cause the deadly disease.
The researchers led by Kasturi Haldar and  Souvik Bhattacharjee of the University of Notre Dame's  Center for Rare and Neglected Diseases revealed how parasites target proteins to the surface of the red blood cell that enables sticking to and blocking blood vessels.
Strategies that prevent this host-targeting process will block disease.

Malaria is a blood disease that kills nearly 1 million people each year. It is caused by a parasite that infects red cells in the blood. Once inside the cell, the parasite exports proteins beyond its own plasma membrane border into the blood cell.

These proteins function as adhesins that help the infected red blood cells stick to the walls of blood vessels in the brain and cause cerebral malaria, a deadly form of the disease that kills over half a million children each year.

i just wish if the pharmageddon companies can do something for these 1 million people.

so sad.