Over 200 million malaria cases are reported globally resulting in approximately 445,000 deaths annually. Plasmodium falciparum is the most prevalent species in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia and is responsible for the majority of deaths. In the last two decades, P. vivax has become recognized to also cause serious clinical malaria and deaths in South and Central America and other parts of the globe. Plasmodium species have a complex life cycle that results in stage specific immunity leading to lack of fully protective immune responses to natural infections. The immune response also contributes to severe disease. Furthermore, polymorphic antigens compound the challenges affecting vaccine design and the development of a robust immune response to vaccine candidates. In order to gain insights into the mechanisms underlying the development of innate and adaptive immune responses, a combination of systems immunology approaches, gene expression of biomarkers of immunity and identification of the correlates of immunity in infected individuals are used. Methods involving cytokine and chemokine profiling, transcriptomics and proteomics are employed to understand contributions of innate and adaptive immunity to protection. The use of murine, simian, chimeric murine and transgenic models have shed light on cellular interactions and expression of biomarkers of immunity by immune cells. This curated Methods Collections will include, but will not be limited to the following topics:

Cellular and molecular markers of immunity

Whole blood transcriptomics

Whole blood RNA sequencing

Cytokine and chemokine profiling

Single cell technologies

Protein microarrays

Proteomics

Mass cytometry

Prime-boost approaches for inducing immunity