Recipient organisationUniversity of OxfordSource-published name: University of Oxford
Funding£2.7M
PeriodMay 2023 — May 2028
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
A second malaria parasite, *Plasmodium vivax*, puts 2.5 billion people at risk across Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America, yet no effective vaccine exists for it. Current vaccine efforts have focused almost entirely on a different malaria parasite, *P. falciparum*. *P. vivax* has been neglected partly because it is harder to study in the lab—it hides in the liver and can re-emerge weeks or months after the initial infection. This project aims to close that gap by building on recent European breakthroughs: new transgenic parasite lines that allow researchers to test how well antibodies block infection, and a safe parasite clone that can be used in controlled human infection trials. If successful, the research will deliver a portfolio of new vaccine candidates ready for field testing, benchmark the best existing antigens against each other for the first time, and create standardised laboratory assays that regulators and funders can use to make faster decisions. The ultimate goal is a vaccine that meets the World Health Organization’s target of 75% efficacy over two years—a threshold that would dramatically reduce the burden of a disease that sickens millions each year and traps communities in cycles of recurring illness.
View original technical description
Plasmodium vivax is the most widespread human malaria with 2.5 billion people living at risk in Africa, South America, Oceania and Asia. The revised Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap to 2030 recognises the severity of P. vivax malaria, calling for a vaccine intervention to achieve 75% efficacy over two years, now equally weighted with P. falciparum. However, if this ambition is to be realised, new and innovative approaches are urgently required to accelerate next-generation vaccine research and development, whilst the few known candidate antigens need to undergo early-phase clinical assessment. Here, we build on exciting breakthroughs in P. vivax vaccine research, recently pioneered in Europe, including new transgenic parasite technologies for functional assay development and production of a parasite clone that is safe for use in controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) clinical models. The Objectives of OptiViVax will integrate ambitious multi-disciplinary scientific and clinical approaches around the parasite’s lifecycle and will use our increased knowledge of P. vivax immuno-biology to further develop next-generation vaccines with improved efficacy. We will diversify the portfolio of new antigens ready for clinical testing by reverse vaccinology and diversify their delivery with new platforms and adjuvants developed using sustainable and improved GMP bio-manufacturing know-how. In parallel, the efficacy of known leading antigens will be benchmarked for the first time using innovative design of clinical studies and CHMI models making these lead candidate vaccines ready for future field trials. Improved preclinical functional assays, using state-of-the-art transgenic parasite lines, will also allow for mechanisms of antibody-mediated protection to be deciphered. The availability of new functional assays and human challenge models will underpin the future framework for informed decision making by the clinical vaccine community, policy makers, funders and regulators.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know