Important Steps Towards Development Of Human Vaccine Against Malaria

A very promising method for **vaccination** is to sufficiently weaken parasites such that they invade liver cells but then are not able to develop any further. It is, however, required that these attenuated parasites are still able to stimulate a good **immune response** in the liver. This can be achieved by irradiating the parasites or by genetically inactivating individual parasite genes that are active during the parasites growth in the liver. Researchers from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands and LUMC, Leiden, the Netherlands, have now characterized a large number of parasite proteins (‘proteome’) that are present only during liver stage development and therefore are potential targets for inactivation. More on "sciencedaily":[ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081030203245.htm]

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