Episode 8 ABRACADABRA! Go Away Malaria!

It’s both a disease of dinosaurs and a plague of people. A gin and tonic might make you forget how much those bites itch, but it won’t protect you much from this mosquito-borne monster. That’s right people, today we’re talking about malaria! We’re super excited to tell you about this parasite since it’s one of EAU’s personal favs (are we allowed to have favorite horrible diseases?). Come along as we travel back millions of years to explore malaria’s wee beginnings, trace its path as it shaped human evolution, take a short botanical detour to make that G & T, and end up where we first began–in 2017. Turns out that monster hasn’t released humanity from its clutches quite yet.

Books

Articles

Shah, Sonia. The fever: How malaria has ruled humankind for 500,000 years. Sarah Crichton Books, 2010.

Bhatt, Samir, et al. “The effect of malaria control on Plasmodium falciparum in Africa between 2000 and 2015.” Nature 526.7572 (2015): 207-211.

Packard, Randall M. The making of a tropical disease: a short history of malaria. JHU Press, 2007.

Pike, Andrew, et al. “Changes in the microbiota cause genetically modified Anopheles to spread in a population.” Science 357.6358 (2017): 1396-1399.

Honigsbaum, Mark. The fever trail: in search of the cure for malaria. Macmillan, 2003.

Wang, Sibao, et al. “Driving mosquito refractoriness to Plasmodium falciparum with engineered symbiotic bacteria.” Science 357.6358 (2017): 1399-1402.

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