Via One India :
" Washington, June 18 : An international team of researchers has made a novel discovery that offers new hope for an effective vaccine against malaria in the future.
Plasmodium falciparum, a blood parasite that causes malaria by invading and multiplying in the red blood cells, kills 1 to 2 million people annually.
"How the parasite invades red blood cells is not completely understood. For many years it has been known that proteins called glycophorins are used by the parasite to gain entry into the red cell," said Jose A. Stoute, senior investigator and team leader, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology, Penn State College of Medicine.
Because infection can take place without glycophorins, researchers suspected that another protein is also involved. The identity of this protein remained a mystery for 20 years and it was named the "X" receptor.
A team of researchers now reports the identity of this protein as the complement receptor 1 (CR1), also known to help protect red cells from attack by the immune system.
CR1 has been suspected of having other roles in the development of malaria complications."
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