Scientists may be one step closer to developing more potent drugs or a vaccine for treating malaria.

After five years of study, researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University have discovered a key process during the invasion of the blood cell by the malaria parasite and have found a way to block that invasion, according to a press release.

"What we have identified is a region of the Malaria parasite which it uses to attach to a healthy blood cell then pushes itself into the cell," Peter Preiser, lead scientist and chair of NTU's School of Biological Sciences, said in a statement.

To prevent the invasion, Preiser and his team developed antibodies that can interfere with the invasion process.

"So imagine the parasite has the key to unlock a door to the red blood cell, but we muck the key up, so no matter how hard the parasite tries, the door just refuses to open," Preiser explained.

They believe this will be instrumental in developing a vaccine for the mosquito-borne infectious disease.

The scientists at NTU are looking to collaborate with the industry on a vaccine against malaria. Preiser said a vaccine against malaria could be developed within the next five years if accelerated by vaccine development companies.

He said he believes the team's scientific breakthrough will be influential in paving the way towards eradicating Malaria in the long run.

According to the World Health Organization, half of the world's population is at risk of Malaria. The disease causes fever and headache and in serious cases, can cause a patient to go into a coma or result in death. The disease infected about 219 million people in 2010, and kills around 860,000 people worldwide annually.

A low-cost vaccine that is effective in rendering the parasite harmless could save millions of lives and benefit the economy by millions of dollars, Preiser said.

According to a press release, the patented discovery by the scientists also opens doors to new drug targets. This will allow scientists to develop more methods to interfere and disrupt the parasite's act of invasion.

The team's scientific breakthrough was published last month in the top scientific journal Nature Communications.