Malaria Vaccine project - Dr Danielle Stanisic

Contact: Jennifer Bailey

Apr

2017

Gold Coast

Apr 06, 2017 5:45 PM – 8:00 PM

Southport Golf Club
Slatyer Ave
Southport, QLD 4215
Australia

There are approximately 3.2 billion people currently living in malaria endemic areas worldwide, many of which are in Commonwealth nations.

In 2015 there were approximately 214 million cases of malaria and 438,000 deaths, mostly children under 5 years of age! Vaccination is the key to shifting the fight against malaria from sustained control to eradication. Despite global efforts there is no effective malaria vaccine available.

PlasProtecT®

Developed at the Institute for Glycomics Griffith University, PlasProtecT® is a novel malaria vaccine candidate. PlasProtecT® consists of whole malaria parasites that are grown in the laboratory under strictly controlled conditions. We then treat these parasites so they can no longer replicate or cause infection. When we administer these treated parasites as a vaccine, an immune response is raised without causing disease. The immune system is then primed to fight malaria parasites that may enter the body in the future, preventing malaria.

PlasProtecT® uses whole malaria parasites, so it overcomes the limitations of sub unit vaccine approaches and we have already shown broad spectrum protection in animal studies. A pilot clinical study in healthy human volunteers demonstrated the PlasProtecT® approach is safe and able to induce an immune response. we are now seeking funding to allow us to demonstrate that PlasProtecT® is safe and effective in larger number of human volunteers and prove that we can protect people from malaria infection.