Application of Radiation Technology: A Novel Vaccine Approach to Induce Protective Immunity against Malaria Infection

Among the numerous infectious diseases, malaria remains a major health challenge. Despite the various approaches adopted for the vector control and availability of antimalarial drugs, the success of malaria eradication is dampened by the spread of drug and insecticide resistance, unavailability of proper diagnostic treatment and successful vaccine. Among the various approaches, vaccination with the aim of developing protective immunity is the most suited, safe and reliable approach for the entire mankind. Numerous approaches are in use for vaccine development; however, they suffer from the drawbacks that immunity developed is short lived and are both species- and stage-specific. Of late, radiation sterilization has drawn the attention in the vaccine development due to its advantages over the conventional methods, and successful clinical trials of irradiated vaccines against the pathogens and tumor. Recently, a novel approach of genetically attenuated sporozoites (PfRAS, PfSPZ, PFSPZ-GA1 sporozoites vaccines) has shown promising results by generating protective immunity against the homologous and heterogenous infection in the clinical trials. Radiation techniques have also been beneficial in control-ling the insects by sterility technique. In this chapter, we have recapitulated the role of radiation biology in the malaria vaccine development with its current status and future challenges associated with the development of radiation attenuated parasite vaccine.