GRI Researcher Studies the Path of Malaria Parasites
September 17, 2010Diana Outlaw, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and GRI researcher, worked with principal investigator Robert Ricklefs of the University of Missouri-St. Louis to estimate how old the lineages of malaria parasites are.
Their results suggested that humans acquired malaria long ago in their evolutionary history--about 2.5 million years--and that malaria parasites have switched hosts throughout their history leading to, among many others, the parasites' infection of humans. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation and their findings were featured in a recent issue of the journal Science.
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