Get Immune to Malaria, I guess...

Some people will go to extreme lengths to avoid mosquito bites. They'll wear long sleeves and pants in the heat of summer, surround themselves with citronella candles and torches, and spray foul-smelling chemicals all over their bodies--or simply not set foot outside when they know the bugs are biting.

Stephen Hoffman isn't quite like those people. In fact, he has gone out of his way to get bitten. Years ago, he let 2,000 mosquitoes feast on his arm and inject perhaps 200,000 parasites into his bloodstream. Why? Well, for one thing, it made him immune to malaria.

He's also the CEO of Sanaria, a Rockville, Md.-based company that aims to develop and commercialize a malaria vaccine. But he doesn't plan on subjecting all of us to as many bites as he has suffered. Receiving the vaccine that Hoffman hopes to create, in fact, wouldn't involve any mosquito bites at all. "It would have to be delivered by needle and syringe," he says. Creating the vaccine is another matter, however, and it calls for more brave volunteers willing to serve as mosquito fodder.

Progress toward a malaria vaccine, including a major new advance that European scientists reported this week, has already demanded a blood sacrifice from hundreds of people. Some, like Hoffman, have had scientific reasons for getting involved. Others have been regular citizens with good initial health, a tolerance for inconvenience and risk, and perhaps either a deep sense of altruism or an acute need for cash. The 15 volunteers in the new European study, most of whom were students at Radboud University in the Netherlands, got paid 1,500 euros (about $2,100) in compensation. Ten of them also gained immunity to malaria, through the infected mosquito bites they got. The other five, assigned to a control group that didn't develop immunity, came down with bad cases of the parasitic disease.