Malaria Vaccine Being Made In Milk of Mice
BIOTECH IN BRIEF / SF Chronicle 6nov00

To protect you from the bite of a mosquito, you might need a mouse (the four legged kind with whiskers).

That's what Genzyme Transgenics Corp. found when it announced that a malaria vaccine protein it is developing in the milk of mice protected primates against malaria. The disease, which is transmitted from the bite of an Anopheles mosquito, is confined mainly to tropical and subtropical climates.

While preying in a preclinical study that certain monkeys cart resist malaria, the company's goal is to develop a vaccine to protect people after the malarial parasite enters the bloodstream and multiplies.

'I'he Framingham, Mass., company, best known for developing drugs in goats, said the rate of production of the malaria vaccine protein, known as MSP-1, in the milk of mice was substantially higher than traditional laboratory in manufacturirg methods.