The Malaria Vaccine Development Branch (MVDB) is an NIAID initiative working in close collaboration with DMID to respond to the global need for vaccines against malaria. The MVDB was commissioned in 2001 to research, develop, and produce prototype malaria vaccines and conduct early-phase clinical trials of promising vaccine candidates. Our overarching goal is to develop malaria vaccines that will reduce severe disease and death among African children and eliminate malaria from low-transmission areas of the world. ? ? An asexual blood-stage vaccine will elicit immune responses capable of either destroying malaria parasites in the blood stream or inhibiting parasites from infecting red blood cells. In either case, the net effect is to reduce or prevent burden of parasites and hence decrease the incidence, severity, or the complications of disease. Such a vaccine would target blood-stage parasite proteins since these antigens are abundantly expressed by parasites during persistent infections. It would act to prime the immune system for subsequent infection in infants or it would boost already present, yet weak, natural immunity in young children. Furthermore, a vaccine composed of multiple antigens will increase the number of individuals responding to at least one component of the vaccine. The inclusion of multiple alleles of polymorphic proteins would also minimize immune pressure on parasite selection, thus decreasing the likelihood of parasite breakthrough.
