IMR Press / FBL / Volume 12 / Issue 10 / DOI: 10.2741/2361

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Malaria vaccines
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1 Division of Malaria Vaccine Development, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 503 Robert Grant Ave, Silver Spring MD 20910-7500, USA
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2007, 12(10), 3928–3955; https://doi.org/10.2741/2361
Published: 1 May 2007
Abstract

More than 120 years after Alphonse Laveran's discovery of the blood-stage malaria parasite, there is no licensed malaria vaccine and malaria remains the world's most serious parasitic disease. Efforts to develop a vaccine have been thwarted by the complexity of the parasite's life cycle and the ability of the parasite to suppress and evade the immune response. Currently, there are several candidate vaccines in clinical trials and many more candidate vaccines that have shown efficacy in animal models or are based on studies of the immune responses of people who are resistant to malaria. The sequencing of the genomes of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium yoelii yoelii in 2002 is expected to result in the identification of previously-unknown candidate vaccine targets from various stages of the Plasmodium life cycle. A great deal of effort is going into identifying the correlates of protection, potentially allowing more efficient testing of candidate vaccines in the future. The fact that a vaccine candidate has shown partial protection in field trials is a reason for hope that, with the proper effort and support, effective vaccines against malaria can be developed.

Keywords
Malaria
Vaccine
Immunity
Plasmodium Falciparum
Clinical Trials
Review
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