The team hopes to produce a successful vaccine for the disease, which currently infects approximately 400 million people worldwide, killing about 2 million of them each year.
The study's lead researcher, biologist Adrian Batchelor of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, says "The high number of deaths from malaria is partly due to the malaria parasite's acquired resistance to traditional treatments. The parasite is a highly complex organism that develops through different life-cycle stages. This has allowed it to evade the immune system and makes creating a comprehensive vaccine a difficult task."
Current malaria vaccines are only able to temporarily suppress the disease.
The research team includes scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and La Trobe University, both located in Australia, and researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.
The study is available in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
