A team of researchers, including NYU Global MPH Director and NYU School of Medicine Professor of Medical Parasitology Dr. Karen Day, believe they have figured out why a genetic blood disorder found in the tropics protects against death from malaria. Their work was featured in the March 18, 2008 editions of The New York Times and New Scientist magazine.

Their research focused on a disease called alpha thalassemia that causes children to produce abnormally small red blood cells. It has long been known by parasitologists that the disease protects against malaria, and it has been speculated that it somehow blocked the malaria parasite from entering the cell.

But Dr. Day and the rest of the research team from NYU and Oxford University studied 800 children in Papua New Guinea and found parasites in the blood cells of children with thalassemia. Children with thalassemia produce more red blood cells than average, with less hemoglobin per cell. Dr. Day and her colleagues propose that this protects them because parasites destroy a smaller percentage of their blood cells.

Their paper, "Increased Microerythrocyte Count in Homozygous {lower case alpha}⁺-Thalassaemia Contributes to Protection against Severe Malarial Anaemia" (manuscript number 07-PLME-RA-0238R2) was published in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine, and can be viewed online at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050056