Article by M. Ganter & J. Przyborski: "The unusual life of malaria parasites" (in German only)
Publication details: Journal "Biologie in unserer Zeit", issue 3/2018.
How do you manage to get to grips with a pathogen that has evaded our immune system for hundreds of thousands of years and becomes resistant to drugs within a short space of time? The answer could lie in the unusual biology of the malaria pathogen Plasmodium.
Read more in the article by our group leaders.
Article by Susanne Wedlich: "Parasites: Why we should value and protect the bad boys of biodiversity." (in German only)
Publication details: RiffReporter, 18 April 2021
When it comes to ecosystems, we like to do the maths without the host - and its parasites. Yet parasites are widespread. And indispensable.
Read more in the article by the freelance science journalist, who also wrote "The Book of Slime".
Article by F. Frischknecht: "Calm before the Storm - New Approaches in the Fight against Malaria"
Publication details: December 2016, "Ruperto Carola" (Research Magazin of Heidelberg University), issue 9, 2016.
Every year more than 250 million people in the tropics and subtropics suffer from malaria, more than 500,000 die of it, mostly children. The dangerous "intermittent fever" is transmitted by mosquitoes that carry the malaria pathogen - a single-celled parasite that goes through a complex life cycle. With new methods scientists from Heidelberg have discovered noticeable pauses during the fatal parasitic campaign of conquest of the pathogen. It is possible that the phases of calm before the storm open up new molecular approaches to effectively combat the age-old human scourge.