Malaria is a devastating infectious disease. We're developing drug inhibitors and vaccines that could become future antimalarial treatments.
Malaria is a devastating infectious disease, caused by parasites that infect the blood. Antimalarial drugs are losing their efficacy as drug-resistance spreads around the world. Therefore, new drugs and vaccines need to be developed we're using left-of-field approaches to create novel therapies.
Malaria kills over half a million people per year, 75% under 5 years of age. Developing new antimalarials is difficult as the drugs must persist in the body for long enough to kill all the parasites.
In our novel approach we're not to kill the parasites but prevent them from invading blood cells as they cannot survive outside blood cells. Several promising inhibitors have been discovered. We've paired these with vaccine-induced invasion blocking antibodies to explore a unique new chemico-vaccine approach to eliminate parasites.
We’re also repurposing drugs used for other human diseases to eliminate malaria. This ensures potential drugs are long lasting and safe. Repurposing drugs greatly reduces development, important in resource-poor countries.
To extend the use of current antimalarial drugs, we’re also monitoring the occurrence and impact of resistance mutations to inform the best treatment options.
A real-time malaria parasite invasion.
Malaria parasites invading a human red blood cell.
Malaria parasites egressing.
Drugs are the main weapons used to combat malaria infection. However, parasites are becoming resistant and new medicines and drug targets are needed.
This project aims to understand how novel mutations will affect malaria parasites from West Africa.
This project involves an array of state-of-the-art molecular biology, biochemical and microscopy techniques to define the function of essential exported proteins in malaria parasites.
Drugs are the main weapons used to combat malaria infection, but parasites are becoming resistant and new medicines and drug targets are needed.
We work with medicinal chemists to develop new antimalarials that are effective against already multi-drug resistant parasites.
PLoS Pathogens
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PLoS Biology
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Nature Communications
Zahra Razook, Madeline G. Dans, Coralie Boulet, Somya Mehra, Dawson B. Ling, Thorey K. Jonsdottir, Coralie Boulet, Madeline G. Dans, Somya Mehra, Zahra Razook
PLoS Pathogens
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Cell
Rasika Kumarasingha, Brendan S. Crabb, Paul R. Gilson
Nature
Jo-Anne Chan, Brendan Elsworth, Catherine Q. Nie, Sarah C. Charnaud, Paul R. Sanders, Mauro F. Azevedo, James G. Beeson, Brendan S. Crabb, Paul R. Gilson, Catherine Q. Nie
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International Journal for Parasitology
Paul R. Gilson, Brendan S. Crabb
Nature
Paul R. Gilson, Brendan S. Crabb, Paul R. Sanders, Paul R. Gilson, Brendan S. Crabb, Paul R. Gilson, Brendan S. Crabb