One of the shortcomings of a therapy that uses millions of identical antibodies to boost the immune system's attack on cancer cells is that many patients whose tumors recede in response to the treatment also experience serious inflammatory problems, such as severe diarrhea and rashes.

Passive immunization through the development of fully human antibodies specific to Plasmodium falciparum may be effective at controlling the disease, report researchers led by Dr. Richard S. McIntosh from the University of Nottingham in a paper published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. The researchers developed these novel reagents by antibody repertoire cloning generated from immune Gambian adults.