ROCKVILLE, Md., April 23 (UPI) -- A U.S. biotechnology company says it will conduct the first clinical trial involving humans of a malaria vaccine that contains the whole malaria parasite.
Sanaria Inc. of Rockville, Md., said it is using a weakened form of the whole malaria parasite that's been harvested from irradiated mosquitoes. Other malaria vaccine candidates use only small portions of the parasite.
Sanaria said its vaccine will be assessed in 104 healthy volunteers beginning next month.
Myron Levine, director of the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Vaccine Development said the Sanaria vaccine is based, in part, on findings from parallel studies conducted during the early 1970s by teams at the Center for Vaccine Development and the Naval Medical Research Center. Levine said those findings were never translated into a vaccine development effort because the task was considered to be impossible.
