Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have discovered how Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria when transmitted through a mosquito bite, can hide from the body’s immune system, sometimes for years. The team’s preclinical study showed that the parasite can shut down a key set of genes, rendering itself “immunologically invisible.”
Their results indicate that in regions where malaria is endemic, asymptomatic adults likely harbor undetectable parasites, which mosquitos may pick up and transfer to the next person they bite. “This finding provides another piece of the puzzle as to why malaria has been so difficult to eradicate,” said study co-lead Francesca Florini, PhD, a research associate in microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Malaria infects 300-500 million…