Malaria vaccine clinical trials: what's on the horizon

• Progress towards a P. falciparum malaria vaccine continues with the completion of several clinical trials.
• Plasmodium vivax vaccine development needs to be prioritized and pursued.
• NHP models and definition of correlates of protection are critical for new vaccines.
• Systems biology and post-genomic data mining are essential for next-generation malaria vaccines.

Significant progress toward a malaria vaccine, specifically for Plasmodium falciparum, has been made in the past few years with the completion of numerous clinical trials. Each trial has utilized a unique combination of antigens, delivery platforms, and adjuvants, which has provided the research community with a wealth of critical information to apply towards the development of next generation malaria vaccines. Despite the progress toward a P. falciparum vaccine, P. vivax vaccine research requires more momentum and additional investigations to identify novel vaccine candidates. In this review, recently completed and ongoing malaria vaccine clinical trials as well as vaccine candidates that are in the development pipeline are reviewed. Perspectives for future research using post-genomic mining, nonhuman primate models, and systems biology are also discussed.