Naval Medicine Expands Malaria Vaccine Development Efforts
Story Number: NNS040408-14
Release Date: 4/9/2004 1:17:00 AM
By Doris M. Ryan, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Public Affairs
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- A team of Navy and civilian researchers recently formed a partnership to expand the Navy’s malaria vaccine development program.
The Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) and GenVec, a biopharmaceutical company, signed a two-year cooperative research agreement March 31 to develop and evaluate potential new vaccines. The Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is providing major funding.
“This is a natural follow-on to our molecular vaccine development program,” said Dr. Denise Doolan, head of the NMRC Malaria program’s pre-clinical research and development efforts. “This agreement represents a unique partnership of government, industry and the public sector.”
The effort brings together GenVec’s unique vaccine delivery system and NMRC’s expertise in malaria and vaccine development. Using a laboratory model, Navy researchers will test several vaccines that include a combination of specific proteins expressed in different stages of the malaria parasite’s complex life cycle.
The parasite’s genome contains over 5,300 proteins,” said Doolan. “We are looking at five of those proteins in this study. Three are expressed in the liver-stage of the parasite, and two others are expressed in the blood stage.”
The goal of these multi-stage vaccines is to prevent infection or decrease the clinical symptoms of the disease. Success in this effort is expected to lead to future clinical studies in humans.
“Malaria is a serious threat to troops stationed in endemic areas,” said Doolan. “In all conflicts during the past century conducted in malaria-endemic areas, malaria has been the leading cause of casualties, exceeding enemy-inflicted casualties in its impact on person-days lost from duty.”
“This was highlighted by the deployment of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit to Liberia last year where there were casualty rates of 28 to 44 percent for troops with as little as 10 days of exposure to the malaria parasite,” she added.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 1 million deaths from malaria occur worldwide each year, with 90 percent in Africa, south of the Sahara. An effective vaccine will be an essential element in the fight against malaria, since the parasite continues to develop resistance to anti-malarial drugs, and the mosquitoes develop resistance to insecticides.
