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Now, a team of Oxford scientists in the UK and Kenya, working with colleagues in three Swiss institutes, have found two people who could reveal a new approach to targeting the malaria parasite.
Malaria still claims over 400,000 lives every year, mostly due to infection by a single species of malaria parasite called Plasmodium falciparum. However, people living in areas where malaria is common naturally acquire immunity that protects them during their adult lives. So one route to finding new vaccines against malaria is by getting down to the molecular level to identify the processes behind this natural immune response.