International – Study finds link between malaria parasites developing antimalarial drug resistance

Spread through Anopheles mosquitoes, the disease affected around 249 million people globally in 2022

Researchers from the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG) at Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, have identified a link between malaria parasites developing resistance to antimalarial drugs.

Affecting around 249 million people globally in 2022, malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that occurs when parasites spread to humans through the bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes.

Specifically focusing on an antimalarial drug known as artemisinin (ART), researchers used a cellular process called transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) modification – a mechanism which allows cells to respond rapidly to stress by altering RNA molecules within a cell…