The ins, outs and roundabouts of malaria

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is a complex eukaryote parasite with a dynamic pattern of genomic expression, enabling it to exploit a series of different habitats in human and mosquito hosts. In the human bloodstream, the parasite grows and multiplies within red blood cells and modifies them in various ways to gain nutrients and combat the host's defences, before escaping and invading new red blood cells by a multi-step process. These events are reflected in the constantly changing structure of the organism during the red blood cell cycle.