Brazilian researchers at the University of São Paulo's Bioscience Institute (IB-USP) are starting to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which the parasite that causes cutaneous leishmaniasis manages to circumvent the host organism's defenses and infect new cells. Cutaneous leishmaniasis, caused by protozoans of the genus Leishmania, produces skin lesions that are slow to heal. It is usually transmitted to humans and other mammals by bites of blood-feeding insects such as the sand fly (genus Lutzomyia in the Americas). According to Lucile Maria Floeter-Winter, a professor in IB-USP's Physiology Department and the main investigator of the group, the pathogen's entry into macrophages - defense..
Science Codex