Always acutely aware of the pathology that ensues during the erythrocytic phase of the malaria parasite’s life cycle, Maria’s lab helped unveil heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) as a host factor that not only promotes liver infection by Plasmodium parasites (Epiphanio et al., 2008), but that also plays a crucial role in the development of experimental cerebral malaria (Pamplona et al., 2007). Here, HMOX1 is linked to malaria.