Functional exploration of in vitro stimulated malaria‐naïve CD45RO+ HLA‐DR+ NK cells segregated for the analysis based on CD38 expression (Supplementary figures 4 and 5) revealed a significantly higher frequency of IFN‐γ+ cells and IFN‐γ+ TNF‐α+ cells in CD45RO+ HLA‐DR+ CD38dim NK cells than their CD38high counterparts (median frequency 80.2% vs. 29.9%, P = 0.0005 for IFN‐γ+ cells; 58.6% vs. 43.8%, P = 0.016 for IFN‐γ+ TNF‐α+ cells; Figure 7e). This evidence concerns the gene CD38 and malaria.