A 'Sympathetic Pregnancy' Vaccine: How Antibodies from Men Can Protect Pregnant Women from Malaria

Colombian men exposed to malaria are found to have antibodies that can prevent infection in the placenta of a pregnant woman. This University of Alberta finding forms the basis for developing a novel vaccine against several forms of malaria, which cause 10,000 maternal deaths and 200,000 stillbirths annually. We discovered that men exposed to malaria have antibodies that can prevent infection in the placenta. This unexpected finding forms the basis of a novel approach to a vaccine that protects pregnant women exposed to multiple species of malaria.