A novel pair-of-pairs matching approach finds that community-level reductions in malaria burden can potentially substantially reduce the low birth weight rate in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among firstborns.

Human mobility drives malaria importation within countries and threatens elimination interventions, but can be measured using new approaches that combine parasite genetics, mobile phone data, travel surveys and models.

Plasmodium falciparum K13 mutations confer resistance to the antimalarial artemisinin in Asian and African parasites, with most gene-edited mutant K13 African parasite lines showing a fitness cost that may predict slow dissemination of artemisinin resistance in high-transmission settings.

Analyses of detailed clinical and entomological data from cohort studies reveal how anti-parasite and anti-disease immunity against P. falciparum develop as a function of age and transmission intensity.

Plasmodium falciparum invasion protein EBA-175, once shed from the parasite surface post invasion, facilitates RBC clustering and enhances parasite growth while simultaneously enabling parasite immune evasion of host neutralizing antibodies.

Data exploring host and parasite signatures in the peripheral blood indicate that total parasite biomass is a better predictor of P. vivax-induced host responses and pathogenesis than peripheral parasitemia.

Parasite life cycles may be more flexible than traditionally thought, potentially allowing single-cell infections of insect vectors and transmission between hosts even at very low parasite densities.

The transparent zebrafish reveals the reality of trypanosomes swimming in a vertebrate host, and their adaptations to an extremely heterogenic environment.

Predators may amplify multiple-host parasite spreading in systems with multiple transmission routes.

Insights into the basic metabolic architecture and adaptations of malaria parasites for growth within human erythrocytes exemplify how incisive knowledge of biochemical pathways and mechanisms may be leveraged to develop new therapies.