World Malaria Day

Photo credit: JCI (Junior Chamber International, Inc.)

Yesterday's post about the potential impact of climate change on malaria incidence details why paying attention to the disease is so important. We’ve made significant advances in malaria control with the money invested so far, but more research for malaria still needs to be done. In honor of World Malaria Day, we've complied a short list of resources, interesting projects, and some great people working in the field.

Resources

• The CDC and NIH both provide extensive information regarding malaria.
• UNICEF provides this fact sheet and the Global Malaria Action Plan is particularly interesting for more in depth information.
  

Innovative Collaborations

• Artemisinin Project — is a collaboration between the Gates Foundation, Sanofi Aventis, Amyris Biotechnologies, a researcher at University of California, & the first nonprofit drug developer in the U.S.—to develop lower cost, semi-synthetic artimisinin.
• GlaxoSmithKline's Patent Pool — Glaxo recently donated 800 of its patents related to neglected tropical diseases to a patent pool. These diseases are considered largely unprofitable ventures, since they mostly affect people in poor countries. Glaxo is trying to encourage global collaboration for research to find better treatments.
• We know a lot of you out there are jealous of Luke's lightsaber. Well soon, you can have your own mosquito zapping laser gun!
  

To put a face on the exciting malaria research that is being done, check out some of our Global Health Ambassadors:

• Ambassador Barry Beaty runs a program called Casa Segura (Safe House), which uses interventions-such as insecticide treated bed nets- to prevent vector transmission in homes.
• Ambassador Jim Kazura has been studying malaria in children, and those that acquire immunity to the disease, to learn more about the relationship between their responses to the disease and their immunity.
• Ambassador Frank Collins has been helping to sequence or map the Anopheles gambiae, the mosquito that is the primary transmitter of malaria parasites in sub-Saharan Africa.

Random Fun Fact

• Last week, Ashton Kutcher and CNN got in a race to see who get get the most "followers" on Twitter... with a goal of reaching 1 million. Ashton won, and is donating $100,000 (10,000 bednets) to fight malaria in Africa, using Twitter as a social tool to raise awareness for World Malaria Day.