In the first and largest global metabolomic study of African children before and after malaria infection, NYU Abu Dhabi Assistant Professor of Biology Youssef Idaghdour and his colleagues at the Centre National de Recherche et de Formation sur le Paludisme in Burkina Faso have advanced the understanding of the molecular mechanisms in play during human malaria and demonstrated how studying ethnic differences in metabolic responses to the infection can help explain the sources of susceptibility and resistance in this deadly disease.