Zombie malaria parasites

Natural infections are distinct from those of laboratory-or zombie-strains Considered one of the "big three" global infectious diseases-together with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis-malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax continues to substantially affect the poorest communities of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (1). Development of resistance to almost all antimalarial drugs by the parasite, resistance of the Anopheles mosquito (which transmits the parasite) to commonly used insecticides, and variable efficacy of the two malaria vaccines recommended by the World Health Organization (2) mean that basic and translational research are the cornerstones of a global response to the disease. Indeed, there is still much unknown about the biology of Plasmodium. On page 527 of this issue, Dogga et al. (3) report a reference atlas for single-cell transcriptomic data spanning the complete life cycle of P. falciparum. The study included natural infections of four asymptomatic children from Mali, revealing distinct behavior of such infections compared with that of two standard laboratory strains.