Malaria - and particularly the disease caused by Plasmodium falciparum - remains a direct as well as indirect cause of poverty and immense human suffering. Research is imperative to alleviate this situation and to control and eventually eradicate the disease. Since the mid-1970s, Danish scientists have contributed increasingly to this effort by publishing more than 700 scientific papers and by training about 60 highly skilled malaria researchers. The efforts which continue to be thoroughly dependent on extensive external funding and public goodwill are briefly reviewed in this article.