University of South Florida researchers have identified a specific region of a malaria parasite that can be recognized and targeted by antibodies. Photo by Adobe Stock.
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University of South Florida Health researchers found a possible path for a malaria vaccine.
Malaria is a serious disease that can be deadly if it’s not diagnosed and treated quickly.
The disease comes from an infected mosquito bite.
But University of South Florida researchers have identified a specific region of a malaria parasite.
This region can be recognized and targeted by antibodies.
Noah Sather is the senior author of the research.
He describes antibodies as the things your immune system uses to fight infections and diseases.
“Every time you go to develop a vaccine, you’re trying to use some part of the bug to generate an immune response,” Sather said. “And what we found is that the parts of the bug that had been previously used for vaccine design for the last 40 or so years. It’s been ineffective.”
The research is still in its early stages as vaccine development is a long process.
“If there’s 1000 steps, we maybe got through the first 200,” Sather said.
But, he also said that it is a well-defined process that people know how to do and they know what steps to take forward.
“Sometimes the hardest part is just getting proof of concept that it works,” Sather said. “And now we have that. And so, the steps are relatively well laid out in front of us.”
Sather said this discovery was possible thanks to his team’s expertise in lab-created antibodies.
“The reality is that most science makes small gains and those small gains add up. This is one of those cases where we got to make a big leap and make a big discovery,” Sather said. “And it’s a discovery that has the potential to save millions of lives. And that’s both a privilege and extraordinarily rare for any scientist.”
Sather says it could take 5 to 7 years before they start to test small trials in humans and another 8 to 10 years for the vaccine to be available to the public.