A novel approach to attenuating the malaria parasite could herald a whole-organism vaccine for humans, according to research published this week in
A research collaboration between Stefan H.I. Kappe, assistant member of the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute's Malaria Antigen Discovery Program, and Kai Matuschewski's group at Heidelberg University School of Medicine induced complete protection against malaria by infecting mice with living
Kappe's group had previously identified UIS3 as being essential for early liver-stage development of the parasite. Plasmodium knockout technologies allowed the team to disrupt the gene without affecting the red cell cycle, meaning that the parasites could be maintained as asexual stages in the red blood ...