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Malaria vaccine gets a parasite boost in the liver

Effective malaria vaccines are urgently needed. Now, clinical evidence indicates that a vaccination approach that uses live parasites growing in the liver can generate high levels of immune protection from infection.
  1. Nana K. Minkah

    1. Nana K. Minkah is at the Center for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington 98109, USA.

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  2. Stefan H. I. Kappe

    1. Stefan H. I. Kappe is at the Center for Global Infectious Disease Research, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Seattle, Washington 98109, USA, and in the Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle.

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Malaria has long remained among the worst infectious-disease threats to human health. There were 229 million clinical cases of malaria and more than 400,000 deaths from this disease reported during 2019, according to the World Health Organization1. Although more than 140 years have passed since Plasmodium parasites were identified as the causative agents of malaria, a vaccine that offers a high level of protection against Plasmodium infection has not yet reached the market. Creation of such a vaccine has been hindered by the genomic complexity of Plasmodium, which has approximately 5,300 genes2, and by the parasite’s elaborate life cycle.

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Nature 595, 173-174 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01720-6

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Competing Interests

S.H.I.K. is pursuing a genetically attenuated whole-parasite approach to a malaria vaccine.

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