Generating a novel dual stage malaria vaccine

Malaria, caused by infection with Plasmodium parasites, is a major global health issue in need of a long lasting effective vaccine. In development since the 1980s, RTS,S is the only licensed malaria vaccine and targets the asymptomatic liver stage of the Plasmodium life cycle. However, RTS,S offers only low levels of initial protection, which wane significantly over the first few years, at which point patients are no longer protected from symptomatic blood stage malaria infection. Hence, there is a great need for an improved malaria vaccine. There are recently published studies demonstrating that Plasmodium parasites that have survived the liver infective stage and entered the blood infective stage can induce an inflammatory environment that disrupts the ongoing immune response to liver stage parasites. Therefore, it is hypothesized that developing a vaccine that targets both liver and blood stage parasites will prevent the disruption of the liver stage immune response caused by the blood stage inflammation. If the hypothesis is correct, dual stage immunization will result in both increased breadth of antigenic targets in addition to enhancing liver stage immunity. The goal of this proposal is to develop an animal model system that will allow the testing of protective capacity of such a vaccine for humans. An ideal team has been assembled that has the knowledge and technical expertise to realize this goal.

Project details

Product Development
Vaccines

Sep 2021 — Aug 2023

$485,375

United States