Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have succeeded in engineering algae to produce potential candidates for a vaccine that would prevent transmission of the parasite that causes malaria, an achievement that could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive way to protect billions of people from one of the world’s most prevalent and debilitating diseases. Initial proof-of-principle experiments suggest that such a vaccine could prevent malaria transmission…. Read the full story from the UCSD Newsroom

The research team included Dr. Joseph Vinetz, pictured at left, and Dr. Fengwu Li from the Department of Medicine.Dr. Vinetz is professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and program director of the Peruvian/Brazilian Amazon Center of Excellence in Malaria Research.

Fengwu Li is an associate project scientist in Dr. Vinetz’s laboratory.

Read the study report in PLoS One (Open access article)

Article citation: Gregory JA, Li F, Tomosada LM, Cox CJ, Topol AB, et al. (2012) Algae-Produced Pfs25 Elicits Antibodies That Inhibit Malaria Transmission. PLoS ONE 7(5): e37179. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037179