Parasite Seeing

One way to tackle malaria is to interrupt its trail of infection. Injected through the skin by a mosquito bite, the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, hides out inside red blood cells while it prepares to replicate. Until now, many of its secrets were kept safe inside. Here, researchers use high resolution electron microscopy to picture its inner details in 3D. Zooming in through the wall of a blood cell, we find a female P. falciparum – computer software colours its individual organelles, like the nucleus (dark green) and mitochondria (red). Another vital organelle, the apicoplast (yellow), is surprisingly similar to a plant’s chloroplast. Targeting such organelles with herbicides may be a novel way of tackling malaria, while this data is made publicly available for other researchers to search for weaknesses.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video from work by Felix Evers and colleagues
• Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, January 2025