Immune Protection Against Malaria: Scientists Find New Protection

For the first time a team of Australian scientists have revealed how malaria parasites cause an inflammatory reaction that sabotages the human body's ability to protect itself and fight against the disease, according to a study at the Walter And Eliza Hall Institute. The researchers' new development paves the way for improving new and existing malaria vaccines.

"This research opens the door to therapeutic approaches to accelerate development of protective immunity to malaria and improve efficacy of malaria vaccines," Dr. Diana Hansen, coauthor of the study said in a news release.

The study was led by Dr Diana Hansen, Dr Axel Kallies and Dr Victoria Ryg-Cornejo who examined how the immune system responds to malaria infection that is caused by Plasmodium falciparum. This is the first instance where scientists have been able to identify why the immune system is unable to create immunity when the body is infected with malaria.

The researchers found that the inflammatory molecules, which drives immune response in clinical and severe malaria prevents the body from developing protective antibodies against the parasite.

"We have now shown that it was a double-edged sword: the strong inflammatory reaction that accompanies and in fact drives severe clinical malaria is also responsible for silencing the key immune cells needed for long-term protection against the parasite," said Hansen.

Malaria is an uncontrollable virus and is difficult to manage since the body is unable to develop long-lasting immunity to the parasite.

"Until now, malaria vaccines have had disappointing results. We can now see a way of improving these responses, by tailoring or augmenting the vaccine to boost development of helper T cells that will enable the body to make protective antibodies that target the malaria parasites," said Hansen.

The findings of this study were published in the journal Cell Reports.

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