Last Updated: 12/06/2024
Understanding the biology of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale for the development of a field-based anti-hypnozoite drug screening model (HypnoBio)
Objectives
The objective of this career development fellowship proposal is to accelerate the research toward an optimized drug assay in which to evaluate the anti-hypnozoite activity of candidate drugs through the achievement of the following aims:
- Field experimental infection of P. vivax and P. ovale to Anopheles spp in Addis Ababa and Bamako;
- Routine production of sporozoites from P. vivax and P. ovale infected mosquitoes;
- Establishment of in vitro optimized malaria liver stage infection and screen using field isolated sporozoites from P. vivax and P. ovale infected mosquitoes.
University of Sciences Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB), Mali
Research focusing on Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium ovale has been severely limited by logistical and biological obstacles while most of malaria control program have instead focused on falciparum malaria. P. vivax and P. ovale have unique attribute to cause malaria relapses, resulting from the activation of quiescent hepatic hypnozoites, hinder global efforts to control and eliminate malaria. Currently, Primaquine is the only licensed drug able to eradicate hypnozoite. However, primaquine is not a well-tolerated drug. Unfortunately, very few tools are available to support biological studies and screen efforts for P. vivax and P. ovale. Specifically, an optimized in vitro liver-stage model supporting biological studies and screen efforts and that would be easily accessible to all researchers is critically needed to enable the discovery of new drugs.
Longitudinal and cross-sectional study.
Dec 2018 — Nov 2020
$168,078
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