Scientists in Seattle plan to pay people to catch malaria in order to test the safety and efficacy of new vaccines.
The Seattle Biomedical Research Institute and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative are collaborating to build a Human Challenge Center at SBRI to test new interventions against the deadly malaria parasite. "This center will allow us to greatly increase our ability to evaluate whether a new vaccine formulation should advance to testing in clinical trials in malaria-endemic populations," Dr. Christian Loucq of MVI said Wednesday in a statement.
The laboratory's Malaria Clinical Trials Center will be one of only a handful of facilities of its kind in the world. Volunteers inoculated with a malaria vaccine candidate will be deliberately infected with malaria through the bite of malaria-infected mosquitoes to assess whether or not the candidate vaccine can prevent or delay malaria infection.
The Seattle Times said the strain of malaria used in the testing is a cloned strain that can be quickly cured. More than 900 people have participated in similar tests at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. There are also labs in Britain and the Netherlands, the newspaper said.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
Related stories:
Discovery about fertilization points way to possible malaria vaccine
International investigations of an organism that one UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher calls a “silly little green scum” have led to key insights into the basic mechanisms of reproduction.
Newly developed anti-malarial medicine treats toxoplasmosis
A new drug that will soon enter clinical trials for treatment of malaria also appears to be 10 times more effective than the key medicine in the current gold-standard treatment for toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by a related parasite that infects nearly one-third of all humans—more than two billion people worldwide.
Early promising results in malaria vaccine trial in Mali
A small clinical trial conducted by an international team of researchers in Mali has found that a candidate malaria vaccine was safe and elicited strong immune responses in the 40 Malian adults who received it.
Researchers put the bite on mosquitoes
Few things sting like a mosquito's bite--especially if that bite carries a disease such as malaria, yellow fever, Dengue fever or West Nile virus. But if researchers from The University of Arizona in Tucson have their way, one day mosquito bites may prove deadly to the mosquitoes as well.
New strategies work to put cancer on the firing line
Dr. Yukai He wants to put cancer in the bull’s eye.“Cancer really comes from us,” the Medical College of Georgia Cancer Center immunologist says of the scary reality that cancer cells are our own cells gone awry. That means our immune system doesn’t always see cancer as a horrific invader.
Selfish DNA and the Genetic Control of Vector-Borne Diseases
Mosquito borne diseases such as malaria and dengue cause suffering and death around the world. Malaria alone causes at least one million deaths annually, and is particularly devastating in children under the age of five. In addition to the human toll, these diseases consume vast economic resources in the very communities that can least afford it.
Influenza vaccine causes weaker immune response for rural children
Researchers have found that vaccination against influenza strains seems to be more effective in a semi-urban population than in a rural population of schoolchildren in Gabon, Africa, according to an article in the Dec. 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases. The study suggests that infection with parasites and/or poor nutrition may have an impact on the effectiveness of influenza vaccine.
Malaria-resistant mosquitoes battle disease with 'molecular warhead'
A team led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers has discovered why some mosquitoes are resistant to malaria, a finding that may one day help fight a disease that afflicts and kills millions of people.