When I first encountered the paper by Weiner et al. in 2011 (1), I was struck not just by the data, but by the questions it raised. Their use of focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) to generate high-resolution 3D reconstructions of nuclear pore organization across the intraerythrocytic cycle of Plasmodium falciparum offered a tantalizing glimpse into the nuclear envelope (NE) of a parasite that replicates unlike any model eukaryote (2). The idea that this structure—a defining feature of eukaryotic cells—could remain intact throughout mitosis, while still accommodating spindle formation, organelle inheritance, and gene regulation, challenged my assumptions about cell division.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have shown that the Cryptosporidium parasite exports a protein into infected intestinal cells, altering the gut environment and enabling the parasite to surv...

Blood-stage Plasmodium falciparum parasites rely on a non-photosynthetic plastid, the apicoplast, for survival, making it an attractive target for antimalarial intervention. Like the mitochondrion, th...

The malaria parasite sporozoite sequentially invades mosquito salivary glands and mammalian hepatocytes; and is the Plasmodium lifecycle infective for…