What are the biggest challenges of developing a malaria vaccine?
It’s difficult because the malaria parasite has become extremely good at evading the human immune system. The parasite can vary the pathways it uses to get past the immune system and infect a person, so it’s like playing a roulette wheel or slot machine to try to predict an effective vaccine target. To be successful, a vaccine will also need to block different stages in the invading parasite’s complex life cycle. Interesting historical fact from his overview of “Malaria” published in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia: More soldiers have been lost to malaria than to bullets in the wars of the 20th century. Dennis Kyle, PhD Dr. Kyle joined USF in April 2006 from the Infectious Disease Research Program at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), where he was deputy director of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics. In 2006 he was named inaugural Scientist of the Year by the Malaria Foundation International. Dr. Kyle is a founder of the World Antimalarial Resistance Network, a new
