D. Bagster Wilson | Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 1936 | Article
For history lovers: this paper illustrates beautifully that humans do acquire immunity to malaria and, importantly, that this has been known for almost 100 years. I love the old-fashioned scientific language, the rigor and the hand-drawn graphs (see figures 2 and 3).
S. Cohen, et al. | Nature, 1961 | Article
For antibody lovers: an absolute classic! This study shows that antibodies taken from adults who had experienced malaria many times could actually "cure" malaria in sick children. A golden oldie and a cornerstone of my research. (Unfortunately not freely available online.)
K. Marsh, et al. | Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 1989 | Article
One of the first illustrations of the power of the prospective cohort study design I use in my research. Here, an analysis of sickle cell trait and bed net use predicts, as expected, a lower risk of developing malaria. Only one of the six immune measures tested at the time performed comparably. Enjoy the caution applied to the interpretation of these results in the discussion.
F. Ellis McKenzie, et al. | Advances in Parasitology, 2008 | Article
Not for the fainthearted! Did you know that malaria fevers were used to treat syphilis back in the day? A lovely historical perspective on the concept of malaria "strains." Following infection with a particular strain, an individual developed fever that was good for treating syphilis. However, if re-infected a number of times with the same "strain," the individual developed resistance, and fever was not induced.
M.J. Gardner | Nature, 2002 | Article
Landmark paper for malaria researchers: the first publication of the full genome of Plasmodium falciparum. In essence, we now know all the 5000-plus proteins that the malaria parasite contains. Our "simple" task is to figure out which of these induce protective immunity.
Faith H. A. Osier, et al. | Infection and Immunity, 2008 | Article
A home-grown classic: my colleagues and I show that immunity against malaria is associated with the breadth (number) and magnitude of antibody responses against specific parasite proteins.
Faith H. A. Osier, et al. | Science Translational Medicine, 2008 | Article
Another home-grown classic: we expand our panel of parasite proteins and identify combinations with potential for new vaccines.