RESEARCH SCIENTISTS from the University of Edinburgh have contributed towards a major breakthrough in the treatment of malaria.

Using new genetic identification technology, they believe that they have identified the gene that has allowed malaria to evolve and become immune to certain remedies used to combat the disease.

Due to their new findings they hope to be able to prevent the malaria virus from becoming immune to plant derived drug artemisinin, currently the only consistently successful treatment.

The gene has impacted upon the effectiveness of other forms of treatment such as the drug chloroquine.

While this development is not a cure in itself, it is hoped that the progress will allow many different theories on malaria treatment to be explored and developed.

Dr. Paul Hunt, from the School of Biological Sciences hopes that the breakthrough will make a significant difference. He said, "This may help track the evolution of drug resistance and may eventually enable the design of alternative, effective drugs."

The University has been involved in malaria research in the past. In September an Edinburgh scientist was involved in a study that found three new forms of malaria in gorillas, which helped further the understanding of the impact of the disease upon humans.

While an ongoing project started in June earlier this year has led to the university working in collaboration with Indian cosmetics firm, Zydus Cadilla in an attempt to hold clinical trials for a malaria vaccine.

The study was conducted with the New University of Lisbon (UNL) and funded by the Medical Research Council.

It has been published in full by BMC Genomics, an open access online science journal.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) there are an estimated 300-500 million cases of malaria a year, spread across over 93 countries.