The ongoing development of new antimalarial drugs and the increasing use of controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) studies to investigate their activity in early-stage clinical trials require the development of methods to analyze their pharmacodynamic effect. This is especially so for studies where quantitative PCR (qPCR) is becoming the preferred method for assessing parasite clearance as t...

Chronic helminth infections induce a type 2 immune response characterized by eosinophilia, high levels of IgE, and increased T cell production of type 2 cytokines. Because basophils have been shown to be substantial contributors of IL-4 in helminth infections, and because basophils are capable of inducing Th2 differentiation of CD4(+) T cells and IgE isotype switching in B cells, we hypothesize...

Understanding the evolution of drug resistance in malaria is a central area of study at the intersection of evolution and medicine. Antimalarial drug resistance is a major threat to malaria control and directly related to trends in malaria attributable mortality. Artemisinin combination therapies (ACT) are now recommended worldwide as first line treatment for uncomplicated malaria, and losing t...

in this paper, by using a new approach on distance between two fuzzy numbers, we construct a new ranking system for fuzzy number which is very realistic and also matching our intuition as the crisp ranking system on r.

Parasite burden predicts disease severity in malaria and risk of death in cerebral malaria patients. In murine experimental cerebral malaria (ECM), parasite burden and CD8(+) T cells promote disease by mechanisms that are not fully understood. We found that the majority of brain-recruited CD8(+) T cells expressed granzyme B (GzmB). Furthermore, gzmB(-/-) mice harbored reduced parasite numbers i...

Current first-line treatments for uncomplicated falciparum malaria rapidly clear the asexual stages of the parasite, but do not fully prevent parasite transmission by mosquitoes. The standard membrane feeding assay (SMFA) is the biological gold standard assessment of transmission reducing activity (TRA), but its throughput is limited by the need to determine mosquito infection status by dissect...

The identification of genes involved in a host's response to parasite infection provides both a means for understanding the pathways involved in immune defence and a target for examining host-parasite co-evolution. Most studies rely on a candidate gene approach derived from model systems to identify gene targets of interest, and there have been a dearth of studies geared towards providing a hol...

Most efforts aimed at elucidating the factors responsible for the variation in species richness among different parasite communities have focused on host characteristics such as body mass or diet. Independently of host features, however, the way in which parasites use resources within the host may also affect the species richness of the community. The distribution of parasite individuals or bio...

The aim of this study was to compare the parasite communities in two sympatric host populations, Trachelyopterus coriaceus andTrachelyopterus galeatus, which were caught in tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil. All the specimens of T. galeatusand T. coriaceus were infected by one or more parasites, such as Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, Tripartiella tetramerii, Trichodina nobilis, Cosmetoclei...

The golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) is a susceptible model to Leishmania (Viannia) spp.; however, available studies employ different infection protocols, which account for clinical and pathological presentation differences. Herein, L. (V.) braziliensis preparations were standardized to contain 10(4), 10(5), or 10(6) parasites to determine an optimal inoculum that ensured cutaneous lesions...