How adhesive protein causes malaria

Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet (KI) and the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) have identified the biochemical mechanism behind the adhesive protein that give rise to particularly serious malaria in children. The knowledge of how the malaria parasite makes blood vessels become sticky paves the way for a future vaccine for the disease, which currently kills some 2 million people every year.