Malaria

Tom Myers of MicroLab Devices in the United Kingdom proposes to develop an electrochemical point-of-care device to provide rapid and accurate diagnosis of malaria and serious bacterial infections in children using a finger-prick blood sample. Integrated diagnosis will allow prompt and accurate treatment and limit needless antibiotic dissemination, which leads to drug resistance.

James Beeson and Damien Drew of the Burnet Institute in Australia propose to generate chimeric Plasmodium falciparum that expresses the antigens of another malaria parasite, P. vivax, allowing them to be evaluated as vaccine candidates. Because laboratory culturing of P. vivax is costly and technically difficult, this new method could help accelerate the development of vaccines against malaria caused by P. vivax.

Pingshan Wang of Clemson University in the U.S. will develop and test an electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) sensor that uses radio-frequency interference to boost its sensitivity for the detection of malaria pigment in a single red or white blood cell. Such devices could allow for accurate and quantitative malaria diagnostics with blood or non-invasive finger-tip test systems.

Miguel Prudencio of Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Portugal will test the theory that modified live rodent malaria parasites (P. berghei) can be used in a vaccine to elicit a strong immune response in humans without being able to infect human red blood cells and cause illness. This was successfully tested in Phase I, and they also established that the human antigens carried by the parasites could induce a selective immune response in mice. In Phase II, they will test their vaccine in Phase I/IIa human trials and evaluate it for safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity.

Vipul Bansal of RMIT University in Australia will develop a nanochip patch that utilizes a surface enhanced raman scattering platform to detect infectious diseases along with Malaria. The patch will be equipped with micro-needles that when applied to the skin come in close proximity to blood vessels which carry biomarkers for infectious diseases. Using a battery-operated laser scanner, Bansal will detect low concentrations of these molecules due to their unique Raman signature.

Christine Hrycyna and Jean Chmielewski of Purdue University in the U.S. will develop novel dimeric drugs designed to block a key protein in the malaria parasite that limits the accumulation of anti-malarials in the parasite's digestive system. By inhibiting this protein, this new therapy could eliminate drug resistance in malaria parasites.

Teun Bousema of Radboud University in the Netherlands proposed that geographic "hotspots" of malaria disease drive local transmission, and therefore that interventions would most efficiently be deployed if they targeted these hotspots. This project's Phase I research demonstrated that hotspots of malaria transmission are present at all levels of endemicity and can be sensitively detected by serological markers of malaria exposure.

DNA vaccines, which can elicit killer T-cell response, have thus far failed to elicit reliable, strong immune response in humans. Cevayir Coban of Osaka University in Japan will use newly identified intracellular signaling molecules as components of DNA vaccines against malaria.

Joseph DeRisi of the University of California at San Francisco proposes to engineer naturally occurring erythrotropic bacteria to target malaria infected red blood cells to serve as a potential prophylactic and treatment for malaria in humans.

To generate the large numbers of infective malaria sporozites needed for use in an effective vaccine, James Kublin of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the U.S. will use high throughput screens to develop a library of media compounds needed to optimize in vitro production.