Parasites on the Clock: How Malaria Races against Mosquito Reproduction | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Parasites on the Clock: How Malaria Races against Mosquito Reproduction | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Friday, April 12, 2019 Parasites on the Clock: How Malaria Races against Mosquito Reproduction

Once consumed by a female mosquito, malaria parasites develop and be passed on to a new human before the mosquito dies. The parasites can develop faster by taking nutrients from the mosquito’s reserves or its blood meal—but if the mosquito lacks the resources to lay eggs, there may be fewer mosquitoes to carry future generations of the malaria parasite. A new blog post on the NIAID Now blog describes how NIAID-funded researchers studied this dynamic, and discovered a surprising solution to the parasite’s paradox.