A potential new malaria vaccine, developed at the Jenner Institute, is showing great potential in neutralising all strains of the most deadly species of malaria parasite.

Malaria, which killed an estimated 781 000 people in 2009, is caused by parasites that are injected into the bloodstream by infected mosquitoes. One species, Plasmodium falciparum, is responsible for 90 per cent of all deaths from malaria -- and vaccination is likely to be the most cost-effective way of protecting people from it in the future.

While early-stage clinical trials in Africa suggest a vaccine known as RTS,S appears to protect about half of people vaccinated from malaria, many scientists remain unconvinced that it is the most effective solution. Instead, many are seeking a more effective vaccine.

The Jenner team, led by Dr Simon Draper, has developed a vaccine that induces an antibody response in a number of animal models that is capable of neutralising all the tested strains of the P. falciparum parasite. Their works is published in the journal Nature Communications.

The work confirms a new finding within the malarial research community, which identified the route the disease uses to enter blood cells. By targeting this pathway, the Jenner researchers have been able to create a new vaccine that attacks the disease at its Achilles’ heel.

So far, the results are extremely encouraging. "What's exciting about RH5 is that we've shown that antibodies against this protein have so far knocked down every parasite we've been able to test in the laboratory," says Simon Draper. "We haven't found one yet that the vaccine isn't able to stop."

Dr Sandy Douglas, a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellow from the University of Oxford and first author on the new study, added: "This is an important step towards developing a much-needed vaccine against one of the world's major killers... [But] this is still early phase research in animals. The next step is to do clinical trials in people."

Indeed, the team now aims to assess the safety of the vaccine. If that goes to plan, the team hope to begin clinical trials in patients within the next two to three years, which could see the vaccine fully developed within a decade.

Read more in Nature Communications

(Image courtesy of rore)