The Lancet Infectious Disease
Feb 2010  Volume 10  Number 2  Pages 67 – 138
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/issue/current

Book Review
The elusive malaria vaccine: miracle or mirage?
Vasee S Moorthy

The author of The Elusive Malaria Vaccine: Miracle or Mirage? has spent several decades engaged in malaria research. Given the start in May, 2009, of the Phase 3 trial of RTS,S/AS01, the first malaria vaccine that might be registered and that could potentially be available for use in sub-Saharan Africa, this book is timely and provides a very good overview of the prehistory and history of microbiology, parasitology, and vaccinology. Its strengths include illuminating details into the life of figures such as Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the seminal malaria work of some of the doyens of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and outlining preclinical research on the blood stages of non-human plasmodia.