Life in the Lab: working in a malaria lab

Alena Pance works in the Malaria Programme at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. In this film she introduces malaria, a disease caused by a parasite called Plasmodium that is transmitted from person to person by mosquitoes. Alena describes how she works safely with malaria parasites in the lab, how she keeps them in human blood and prepares them to be looked at under a microscope.

The Malaria Programme at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute investigates the biology of Plasmodium, mosquitoes and humans. By understanding the biology of the organisms the programme aims to find new ways to prevent and treat malaria such as new vaccines and drugs.

This film is part of a series of Life in the lab films that provide an in-depth look at some of the laboratory processes used by different team”s at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. The film has been developed to support the OCR Cambridge Technical Level 3 in laboratory skills.