Navy research team tests DNA Malaria vaccine

Sea Power, Dec 1998

A team of researchers led by a Navy physician has successfully tested a DNA vaccine in healthy humans, a first for medical science. The DNA vaccine for malaria represents "a significant milestone in the medical profession's campaign against deadly diseases," officials said.

The team, led by Capt. Stephen Hoffman of the Naval Medical Research Center in Bethesda, Md., included researchers from Vical Inc., the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and Pasteur Merieux Connaught (of the RhonePoulenc Group). The team immunized 20 healthy human volunteers with a malaria DNA vaccine. More than half of the volunteers developed the "killer" T-cells that defend the human body against the disease.

"The purpose of this study was to determine if DNA immunization is safe, well-tolerated, and generates an immune response in normal humans," said Hoffman. "We established this, so our next step is to develop a vaccine that will provide protection."

Hoffman said that the team used malaria as "a model system" because malaria "is the most important infectious disease threat to our operating forces." Hoffman stressed that the significance of the malaria DNA tests "is in the proof of principle that allows us to advance toward a new era in vaccines."

Hoffman's team worked with researchers from The Institute for Genomic Research, and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, to successfully complete the DNA sequence, or "genetic blueprint," of an entire chromosome from the human malaria parasite.

The Naval Medical Research Institute began researching DNA vaccines more than six years ago. Malaria afflicts 300 million to 500 million people each year and is considered a major threat to U.S. military forces.