A team of ethnic Hungarian researchers from two universities in Romania’s Transylvania region have developed a method for advancing the production of a malaria drug.
According to MTI, a seven-member team from the Sapientia University of Cluj (Kolozsvár) has managed to increase the amount of artemisinin, a substance used in producing the drug, by 17 percent through a special biological treatment of the Artemisia annua plant’s roots.
Reports suggest that the team found that their method helped the plant better adapt to draught, which is important from the point of view that the Artemisia annua is cultivated mostly in tropical or subtropical environments with scarce water supplies.
The study has now been published in the renowned Frontiers in Plant Science journal. Their findings are set to go a long way in helping the one million people dying annually and around 550 million people infected with malaria.