Chi-Min Ho

For the first time, researchers have imaged the precise molecular structure that malaria parasites use to invade human red blood cells. A team led by Chi-Min Ho at Columbia University captured the moving junction, a ring-shaped portal that opens and closes in less than a minute, in atomic detail using cryo-electron microscopy. The findings, published in a new study, explain how the parasite remodels the host cell's membrane to slip through without a trace, potentially informing the next generation of malaria drugs.