Improved vaccines using mosquito transmittable blood stage attenuated malaria parasites

There is still no useful vaccine against malaria. The parasites are transmitted by mosquitoes and first replicate within the liver into new forms that can further infect red blood cells to ultimately cause the disease. It has been shown that these attenuated parasite lines can protect up to 100% of vaccinated volunteers or rodents. Yet this requires a large dose of parasites and multiple immunizations, which will likely make a wide-spread use extremely challenging if not impossible. Also, in humans this vaccination protects only from challenge of the same strain of parasite. In nature, however there is a myriad of strains. Here, a new strategy is proposed that could potentially overcomes both problems by generating genetically modified parasites that pass through the liver and undergo limited rounds of replications in the blood stage before they die. This could contribute to the build-up of stage-transcending immunity and thus to a new generation of experimental malaria vaccines.

Project details

Basic Science
Genetics and Genomics
Vaccines

Oct 2016 — Apr 2018

Germany