Malaria culture is the method to grow malaria parasites outside the body i.e. in an ex vivo environment. Although attempts for propagation of the parasites outside of humans or animal models reach as far back as 1912, the success of the initial attempts was limited to one or just a few cycles. The first successful continuous culture was established in 1976. Initial hopes that the ex vivo culture would lead quickly to the discovery of a vaccine were premature. However, the development of new drugs was greatly facilitated. Method Infected human red blood cells are incubated in a culture dish or flask at 37 °C together with a nutrient medium and plasma, serum or serum substitutes. A special feature of the incubation is the special gas mixture filled with Nitrogen (90-92 %) CO2 (5 %) and Oxygen (3-5 %) allowing the parasites to grow at 37 °C in a cell incubator. An alternative to gassing the cultures with the exact gas mixture, is the use of a candlejar. The candlejar is an airtight container in which the cultures and a lit candle are placed. The burning candle consumes some of the oxygen and produces carbon dioxide (CO2), which acts as a fire extinguisher. Carbon dioxide content in fresh air varies between 0.036 % and 0.039 %. Once the CO2 concentration reaches approximately 5 %, the candle stops burning. The number of parasites increased by a factor 5 approximately every 48 hours (one cycle). The parasitemia can be determined via blood film, to keep it within the wanted limits, the culture can be thinned out with healthy red blood cells. The original method for the successful ex vivo propagation of P. falciparum described culture of the parasite under static conditions (Trager-Jensen method). James B. Jensen joined Trager’s laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow in 1976. He decided to employ a candlejar instead of the CO2 incubator. In the summer of 1976 Milton Friedman, a graduate student in the Trager lab who was working in the MRC laboratories in The Gambia, arranged for a sample of human blood infected with P. falciparum to be sent to New York City. This was diluted with RPMI 1640 (which turned out to be the best of the commercial media) in Petri dishes, placed in a candlejar and incubated. The line grew very well and became FCR-3/Gambia, one of the most widely used strains. Later, other lines