{"id":33576,"date":"2020-11-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=33576"},"modified":"2024-08-16T23:35:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T21:35:21","slug":"potw2045","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2045\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding malaria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Cerebral malaria is a severe type of malaria that affects the brain. It causes around 400 000 deaths each year, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa and in children under five years old. To help understand \u2013 and ultimately to fight \u2013 this disease, EMBL researchers from the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.es\/research\/unit\/bernabeu\/\"> Bernabeu group<\/a> at EMBL Barcelona have created <em>in vitro<\/em> engineered networks of human blood vessels. One such network can be seen in this Picture of the Week, where blood vessels appear in red and blue, and brain cells in green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such pre-patterned <em>in vitro<\/em> vascular engineered model networks are composed of a collagen matrix crossed by open tubular networks. While refining the pre-patterned network, the researchers have control over blood vessel diameter, the number of branches, and flow conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The collagen matrix supports the growth of many cell types, like astrocytes \u2013 a type of brain cell (green). Endothelial cells (red) are seeded through the microfluidic network. After a couple of days in culture, they form a homogeneous layer that lines the insides of the engineered channels. After several days, the ends of the astrocytes\u2019 branches \u2013 known as endfeet \u2013 extend around the blood vessels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using such networks, members of the Bernabeu group want to recreate barrier properties found in the human blood\u2013brain barrier. Once the model is developed, the scientists will be able to study how malaria parasites cause cerebral malaria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Credit: Bernabeu Group\/EMBL<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it <a href=\"mailto:mathias.jaeger@embl.de\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To help understand cerebral malaria the Bernabeu group has created in vitro engineered networks of human blood vessels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":33580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17591],"tags":[497,728,3684,928,330,4726],"embl_taxonomy":[19173],"class_list":["post-33576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science-technology","tag-barcelona","tag-blood","tag-infection-biology","tag-infectious-disease","tag-malaria","tag-parasite","embl_taxonomy-bernabeu-group"],"acf":{"featured":false,"show_featured_image":false,"color":"#007B53","link_color":"#fff","article_intro":"","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"in_this_article":false,"youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","press_contact":"None","translations":false,"embl_taxonomy_term_who":false,"embl_taxonomy_term_what":false,"embl_taxonomy_term_where":false,"vf_locked":false},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"18a7a17b-e276-4afd-b0ca-8ddac1883d45\";i:2;s:36:\"71aeb1fd-6b3c-4f66-bae8-a09e9fbedf58\";}","parents":[],"name":["Bernabeu Group"],"slug":"bernabeu-group","description":"What &gt; Tissue biology and disease modelling &gt; Bernabeu Group"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Understanding malaria | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"To help understand cerebral malaria the Bernabeu group has created in vitro engineered networks of human blood vessels.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2045\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Understanding malaria | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To help understand cerebral malaria the Bernabeu group has created in vitro engineered networks of human blood vessels.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2045\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-10T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-16T21:35:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/potw2045-1000x600-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mathias J\u00e4ger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mathias J\u00e4ger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2045\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2045\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mathias J\u00e4ger\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/63a0ca26daa6707834de41dfddfc6a42\"},\"headline\":\"Understanding malaria\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-10T08:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-16T21:35:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2045\/\"},\"wordCount\":250,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2045\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/potw2045-1000x600-1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"barcelona\",\"blood\",\"infection biology\",\"infectious disease\",\"malaria\",\"parasite\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Picture of the week\",\"Science &amp; 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