As expected, Dd2 proliferates at a significantly higher rate than HB3 (unpaired Student’s t-test, p-value = 0.03) and supported observations from earlier studies measuring growth related phenotypes that included increase in parasitemia across 8 days, asexual cell cycle duration, merozoites per schizont, and red blood cell invasion efficiency [37]. Here, AKR1C2 is linked to parasitic infectious disease.