A new technique creates all-purpose antibodies that can be activated at a moment’s notice.

GlaxoSmithKline's RTS,S malaria vaccine entered its final phase of pre-approval testing last week in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, raising hopes that the drug could be licensed for widespread use by 2012. On 26 May, five infants aged 5–17 months were inoculated with the vaccine. In the coming months, the study will become the largest ever trial of a malaria vaccine candidate, involving 16,000 children under the age of two at eleven sites in seven African countries. RTS,S is so far the only malaria vaccine to make it to phase III trials, in a development process that has taken more than two decades and cost over US$400 million.

The World Health Organization says a vaccine which can prevent a diarrhoea and vomiting virus should be given to all children as a routine vaccination. Rotavirus causes more than 500,000 diarrheal deaths and two million hospitalisations a year among children. Over 85% of deaths occur in developing countries in Africa and Asia.