Malaria Immunity and Vaccines

Malaria is among the world’s leading health problems, particularly affecting young children and pregnant women. Additionally, malaria severely impedes education, equity and economic development. We aim to understand the targets and mechanisms of immunity to malaria and develop innovative vaccines that are highly protective against malaria.

Combating malaria is an explicit target in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, progress in reducing the global burden of malaria has stalled since 2015, with increases likely in the coming years. Plasmodium falciparum causes most clinical cases and deaths globally, with P. vivax the second major cause, particularly in the Asia and Pacific region.

Our broad objectives are to accelerate progress towards elimination of malaria through

1. development of new highly protective and long-lasting vaccines
2. developing and supporting the implementation of novel approaches for malaria surveillance to strengthen impact of interventions
3. developing and evaluating new interventions in malaria-endemic populations.

We use cutting-edge approaches to understand:

• malaria immunity in vaccine trials and clinical studies
• the design of new vaccines that overcome existing roadblocks.

We work with large multicentre studies across malaria endemic regions, including analysis of malaria vaccine trials. To achieve our goals and maximise the impact of our work, we collaborate extensively nationally and internationally.