Malaria News and Research

Latest Malaria News and Research

Nepalese government launches 'ambitious' plan to end malaria, IRIN reports

"The Nepalese government has launched an ambitious plan to curb the spread of malaria in high-risk parts of the country, where some 3,000 people were infected last year," IRIN reports. Through the program, which began on May 1 and "is the first nationwide push to end malaria," the "health ministry will distribute [anti-malarial] drugs at their local offices, and through their representatives in rural areas," IRIN writes.

11 May 2012

Examining the need for WHO today

Responding to an opinion piece published in Nature Medicine last week in which Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore and former director of research policy and cooperation at the WHO, and Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, argue the case for reforming and improving the WHO, KPLU's Tom Paulson writes in a post on KPLU 88.5's "Humanosphere" blog.

10 May 2012

Inovio first quarter total revenue decreases to $1.7 million

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today reported financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2012.

10 May 2012

New insecticide-treated bodysuit can fight malaria

A Cornell University scientist and designer from Africa have together created a fashionable hooded bodysuit embedded at the molecular level with insecticides for warding off mosquitoes infected with malaria, a disease estimated to kill 655,000 people annually on the continent.

9 May 2012

Researchers develop potent new drug that can kill tumor cells

All cells have the ability to recycle unwanted or damaged proteins and reuse the building blocks as food. But cancer cells have ramped up the system, called autophagy, and rely on it to escape damage in the face of chemotherapy and other treatments. Now, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine; the Abramson Cancer Center; and the School of Arts and Sciences, at the University of Pennsylvania, have developed a potent new drug that clogs up the recycling machinery and kills tumor cells in mouse models.

9 May 2012

Bumped kinase inhibitors may control malaria

Over 200 million people contract malaria each year, and according to the World Health Organization, an estimated 655,000 people died from malaria in 2010. Malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium, which is transmitted to humans through mosquito bites. More effective control of malaria will require the development of new tools to prevent new infections.

9 May 2012

iBio receives U.S. patent for iBioModulator platform

iBio, Inc. today announced issuance of a US patent covering compositions of matter and methods of use of modified lichenase B polypeptides comprising the Company's iBioModulator platform.

9 May 2012

Man-made waterways contribute to malaria breeding grounds, study suggests

A recent study, conducted by Elizabeth Whitcombe, visiting senior research scholar at the earth system science interdisciplinary center at the University of Maryland, and published in the May 13 issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, "mapped meteorological, irrigation and medical reports during British rule in India" and concluded modern-day India should learn lessons from the past to improve engineering plans and epidemiological "modeling of environmental factors controlling vector borne disease," especially malaria, SciDev.Net reports.

8 May 2012

Various combinations of biomarkers are required to unequivocally diagnose specific disease

With a range of diseases, doctors need unique features which they can use to unequivocally identify a patient's illness for an appropriate diagnosis. Scientists therefore search for the biomarkers for an illness or a combination of biomarkers, known as biosignatures, which are as easy as possible to measure.

7 May 2012

U.N.-sponsored report finds 1 in 10 infants born prematurely worldwide

Fifteen million infants, or nearly one in 10 worldwide, "are born premature every year, and 1.1 million of those infants die, according to a U.N.-sponsored report released Wednesday," Agence France-Presse reports.

4 May 2012

HIV/AIDS funding does not undermine efforts to fight other diseases, study suggests

"While the battle against HIV/AIDS attracts more donor funding globally than all other diseases combined, it has not diverted attention from fighting unrelated afflictions -- such as malaria, measles and malnutrition -- and may be improving health services overall in targeted countries, according to a study on Rwanda published" Wednesday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, an American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) press release reports.

4 May 2012

UCLA creates crowd-sourced online gaming system to detect malaria

Online crowd-sourcing - in which a task is presented to the public, who respond, for free, with various solutions and suggestions - has been used to evaluate potential consumer products, develop software algorithms and solve vexing research-and-development challenges. But diagnosing infectious diseases?

4 May 2012

GenVec receives NIAID’s Phase I SBIR grant to support RSV vaccine program

GenVec, Inc. announced today that it has received a Phase I Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the Company's Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine program.

4 May 2012

Global Fund completes reorganization of workforce, tightens focus to 20 'high-impact countries'

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria "is cutting its workforce and tightening its focus on 20 countries hardest hit by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria," Reuters reports. Gabriel Jaramillo, who took over as general manager of the fund in January, "said in a statement that the fund had completed a reorganization that would rebalance its workforce with 39 percent more people managing grants and 38 percent fewer in support roles," the news service notes.

3 May 2012

Levetiracetam to be tested for seizure management in malaria endemic regions

Michigan State University researchers, with the help of a groundbreaking medical device, are starting a clinical trial in Africa they hope will provide relief for the hundreds of thousands of children who survive cerebral malaria but are left stricken with epilepsy or other neurologic disorders.

2 May 2012

Inovio's SynCon vaccine for cervical dysplasias and cancers granted U.S. patent

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted U.S. Patent No. 8,168,769, covering Inovio's SynCon vaccine for cervical dysplasias and cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV).

2 May 2012

Financial Times examines Cuban company selling larvicides for malaria control in Africa

Though "[m]ost international support credited with the recent decline in malaria in Africa has been channeled to providing bednets, diagnostics and drugs, a Cuban company called Labiofam is marketing bacterial larvicides in Africa to help fight the disease," the Financial Times reports.

30 Apr 2012

Capitol Hill event highlights U.S. advancements in malaria science, technology

This post in Malaria No More's "Malaria Policy Center" blog reports on a two-part event held on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, April 25, World Malaria Day, titled, "U.S. Advancements in Science and Technology in Malaria: A Showcase of Domestic Research & Development to Save Lives and Keep Americans Safe."

30 Apr 2012

Without sustained investment in malaria fight, world faces resurgence of disease

"If we needed more evidence that the funding cuts at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria were going to be detrimental to people's lives, a new study ... makes it clear: Providing funding to fight malaria makes malaria go away," Kolleen Bouchane, director of ACTION, a global partnership of health advocacy organizations, writes in the Huffington Post's "Impact" blog.

30 Apr 2012

Only few clinical trials are being conducted to test drugs in pediatric patients

Although children are more likely than adults to suffer from many diseases, few clinical trials are being conducted to test drugs in pediatric patients, according to a study to be presented Saturday, April 28, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Boston.

30 Apr 2012