Funding outcome

Malaria is one of the deadliest parasitic diseases in the world. In 2016, malaria killed an estimated 445,000 people worldwide. The majority of these deaths occurred in children under the age of five and pregnant women living in sub-Saharan Africa. When children are young and they have not yet developed immunity to malaria, the infection can be deadly. Each time a person gets a malaria infection, their immune system will develop more protective antibodies against the parasite. People who grow up in areas where malaria is prevalent will eventually develop partial immunity against malaria, which can prevent severe disease and death. However, when a woman becomes pregnant for the first time, the parasite binds to the placenta and hides from the woman's immune system. Malaria infection in pregnancy is very dangerous for both the mother and her unborn child. Infection of the placenta can cause pre-term birth, low birth weight babies, maternal anemia and even infant and maternal death. Once a woman has had multiple malaria infections in pregnancy, her immune system will naturally develop protective antibodies that can stop the malaria parasite from binding to the placenta. These antibodies protect both mother and child from the effects of malaria infection in pregnancy. The goal of my research is to develop a vaccine that can be given to girls to protect them from malaria if they eventually become pregnant. The vaccine will cause the immune system to develop protective antibodies that stop the parasite from binding to the placenta .. Our strategy is to design a vaccine based on a part of the protein that the parasite uses to bind to the placenta and induce antibodies that block placental infection. A successful vaccine against malaria in pregnancy will have direct impacts on the wellbeing of mothers and their children in malaria-endemic countries.