Most of those are kids in Africa, where the malaria parasite is transmitted with deadly efficiency.
Recent advances in biotechnology, including mapping the genome of the malaria parasite, point to a possible malaria vaccine.
It works by introducing a protein whose surface resembles that of the malaria parasite, thus inducing an immune reaction.
Professor Willem Takken from Wageningn University in the Netherlands said the fungus also stops live mosquitoes from transmitting the malaria parasite to humans.
It is a time when the malaria parasite is peculiarly vulnerable.
Other genes, that either kill the malaria parasite or make the flies susceptible to insecticides, can be tagged onto the modified genes, and will also spread through the population.
When people are infected by malaria, the parasite goes first to the liver, where it is amplified 20, 000 times.
The mosquito bites one person or animal with malaria, takes the parasite on board, flies off to another victim, bites and implants the parasite, which proceeds to multiply like crazy, sickening if not killing its victims.
The extreme microscope will enable a number of subjective and time-consuming tasks such as counting the number of cells staining positive for a biomarker or locating cells infected with a parasite like malaria, to be replaced by highly repeatable and robust computer vision applications.
Existing vaccines work against viruses and bacteria, but the parasite that causes malaria is a more complex type of organism.
Dr Xin-zhuan Su, one of the researchers, said the studies, which are published in the journal Nature, would change scientific thinking on the parasite and the development of a malaria vaccine.
His staff is working to fight the spread of malaria, inventing a laser fence that identifies and kills parasite-carrying mosquitoes.
By knocking out a gene essential to the parasite's development, Kappe hopes to create a vaccine against malaria.
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