Malaria Virulence, Drug Discovery and Resistance

Malaria is a devastating infectious disease, caused by parasites that infect the blood. Antimalarial drugs are losing their efficacy as drug-resistance spreads around the world. Therefore, new drugs and vaccines need to be developed we're using left-of-field approaches to create novel therapies.

Malaria kills over half a million people per year, 75% under 5 years of age. Developing new antimalarials is difficult as the drugs must persist in the body for long enough to kill all the parasites.

In our novel approach we're not to kill the parasites but prevent them from invading blood cells as they cannot survive outside blood cells. Several promising inhibitors have been discovered. We've paired these with vaccine-induced invasion blocking antibodies to explore  a unique new chemico-vaccine approach to eliminate parasites.

We’re also repurposing drugs used for other human diseases to eliminate malaria. This ensures potential drugs are long lasting and safe. Repurposing drugs greatly reduces development, important in resource-poor countries.

To extend the use of current antimalarial drugs, we’re also monitoring the occurrence and impact of resistance mutations to inform the best treatment options.