In an innovative project with implications for malaria vaccine development, scientists have used genomics, proteomics and gene expression studies to trace how malaria parasites evolve on a molecular level as they move between their hosts and insect vectors. That focus on the parasites' complex life cycle is helping researchers understand when different genes switch on and off as the pathogens metamorphose through seven different life stages. In turn, that molecular-level data may benefit biomedical scientists who are identifying new targets for vaccines that would impede the parasite during stages when it is particularly vulnerable to intervention.

A portable device similar to today's home pregnancy tests that can quickly detect the presence of infectious diseases, including HIV-AIDS and measles, as well as biological agents such as ricin and anthrax, is the object of a new joint university/industry research project. Vanderbilt University's Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education (VIIBRE) and Pria Diagnostics LLC, a privately held California company that specializes in miniaturized medical diagnostics, agreed to collaborate on the development before the holidays. VIIBRE has spent the last three years developing the ability to measure the metabolism of small groups of cells and studying how they respond to drugs, toxins and pollutants. To do so, the interdisciplinary team has developed two basic technologies: special electrodes that can measure the concentrations of the chemicals that cells consume and excrete in extremely small volumes and the use of fluids flowing through microscopic channels to move and manipulate small numbers of cells reliably. In the process, the group has applied for more than 12 patents.

Scientists at the University of Oregon have discovered a form of blue-green algae that lives independently in California's Salton Sea, using near-infrared light for photosynthesis, according to an article published in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "This new strain of Acaryochloris is unique because it is able to live on its own," says UO biology professor Michelle Wood. She obtained samples containing the organism while studying the diversity of blue-green algae in the hypersaline lake as part of the comprehensive study of the Salton Sea coordinated by Professor Stuart Hurlbert, director of the Center for Inland Waters at San Diego State University.