Bug-Zapper: A Dose of Radiation May Help Knock Out Malaria
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Credit: Sinclair Stammers/Peter Billingsley
How are physicists helping an effort to eradicate malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills more than one million people every year? Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology used their expertise in radiation science to help a young company create weakened, harmless versions of the malaria-causing parasite. These parasites, in turn, are being used to create a new type of vaccine that shows promise of being more effective than current malaria vaccines.
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