Seattle Biomedical Research Institute finally has moved into clinical trials with a whole organism genetically attenuated malaria vaccine. The largest independent, non-profit organization in the United States is in need of extra volunteers to be bitten by a malaria-carrying mosquito in order to test vaccines.

The Seattle Biomedical Research Institute will pay volunteers as much as $4,000 to be bitten by mosquitoes infected with malaria. Malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases and an enormous public health problem.

ETH Zurich professor Peter Seeberger has been working on a sugar-based malaria vaccine for years. The new test takes him one important step closer to his goal. The malaria pathogen plasmodium falciparum carries poisonous sugar molecules – called GPIs for short – on its surface that are able to be individually identified.

Trials are underway for a new vaccine to combat the most deadly form of malaria. For the first time ever, researchers will use a virus found in chimpanzees to boost the efficacy of the vaccine. The trials will take place at the University of Oxford's Jenner Institute, led by its Director, Professor Adrian Hill, and are funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Researchers at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine's Center for Global Health & Diseases published data potentially having a strong effect on the three billion people exposed to malaria every year.

The first study to test GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) investigational RTS,S/AS02 malaria vaccine in African infants serves as the first proof of concept in this population that the vaccine has a promising safety and tolerability profile and reduces malaria parasite infection and clinical illness due to malaria, according to a paper published today online in The Lancet.

Malaria is the world’s most frequent parasitic disease, affecting more than 100 countries in the tropical zones, mostly in Africa, and 40% of the world population, with more than a million deatths per year. As a consequence countries affected by malaria also tend to be economically disadvantaged.

One person dies of it every 30 seconds, it rivals HIV and tuberculosis as the world's most deadly infection and the vast majority of its victims are under five years old. Now, just over 100 years since Britain's Sir Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for finally proving that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, researchers at The University of Nottingham believe they have made a significant breakthrough in the search for an effective vaccine.

A team of Australian malaria experts has been meeting in Canberra to find the most efficient ways to combat the disease in the South Pacific. Canberra has just announced a new multi-million dollar aid package to help efforts in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.