The Source of Malaria

A recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences supports the hypothesis that the parasite that causes malaria in humans is an evolved form of a similar parasite that infects chimpanzees. As reported by The Economist:

In 1958 Frank Livingstone, a noted anthropologist, suggested that Plasmodium falciparum (which is by far the deadliest of the several parasites that cause human malaria) had jumped into Homo sapiens from chimpanzees. He speculated that the rise of agriculture had led to human encroachment on wild forests, giving the chimp version of the bug, P. reichenowi, the chance to find a new host.

By comparing the DNA of the two different parasite species, a team of researchers was able to determine that the human version does, in fact, appear to have evolved from the chimpanzee version. This analysis also shows that the "jump" from chimps to humans probably happened about 10,000 years ago, and that it only happened once, since all P. falciparum appear to be derived from a single ancestral organism.

Research such as this can provide valuable information into how diseases jump from species to species, which can help prevent the spread of new types of pathogens. This research can also be helpful to scientists who are trying to develop a vaccine against malaria.