Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - OptiMalVax (Optimizing a deployable high efficacy malaria vaccine)
Teaser
A highly effective malaria vaccine against Plasmodium falciparum should help prevent half a million deaths from malaria each year. New vaccine technologies and antigen discovery approaches now make accelerated design and development of a highly effective multi-antigen...
Summary
A highly effective malaria vaccine against Plasmodium falciparum should help prevent half a million deaths from malaria each year. New vaccine technologies and antigen discovery approaches now make accelerated design and development of a highly effective multi-antigen multi-stage subunit vaccine feasible. Leading malariologists, vaccine researchers and product developers will here collaborate in an exciting programme of antigen discovery science linked to rapid clinical development of new vaccine candidates.
Our approach tackles the toughest problems in malaria vaccine design: choice of the best antigens, attaining high immunogenicity, avoiding polymorphic antigens and increasing the durability of vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy.
We take advantage of several recent advances in vaccinology and adopt some very new technologies: sequencing malaria peptides eluted from the HLA molecules, parasites expressing multiple transgenes, multi-antigen virus-like particles constructed with new bonding technologies, delayed release microcapsules, and liver-targeted immunisation with vaccine vectors.
We enhance our chances of success by using a multi-stage multi-antigen approach, by optimising the magnitude and durability of well-characterised immune responses to key antigens, and using stringent infectious challenges and functional assays as established criteria for progression at each stage.
The consortium comprises many of the foremost researchers in this field in Europe with leading groups in the USA, Australia and Africa. We link to EDCTP programmes and harmonise our timeline to fit with the recent roadmaps for malaria vaccine development. We include a major pharma partner and several excellent European biotech companies helping enhance Europe’s leading position in the commercial development of vaccines.
This ambitious and exciting programme should have a high chance of success in tackling the major global health problem posed by malaria.
Work performed
We have identified new antigens (immune system stimulating molecules) that are potential vaccine candidates for all stages of the malaria parasite (Plasmodium) lifecycle. We have also been evaluating the immune stimulatory ability of different virus-like particle (VLP) constructs. These VLPs stimulate the immune system very potently as they are something the immune system recognises well as a target, and valuably they also provide a backbone structure that different antigens can be attached to. VLPs can be coated with more than one antigen to give increased stimulation of the immune system. In this project we have developed a two antigen presenting VLP for two stages of malaria parasite’s life cycle.
From a clinical perspective we have determined that an initial two antigen vaccine candidate (termed LS2), which targeted the liver-stage of the Plasmodium lifecycle is outperformed by a well- studied existing candidate vaccine (ME-TRAP), but a new “prime-target†vaccine administration strategy has been developed with ME-TRAP that has the potential to target immune responses very well to the liver and provide protection at that stage of the parasite’s life cycle. A clinical trial using this approach has been initiated and is ongoing.
Final results
Thus far this project has progressed beyond state of the art in identifying potential vaccine candidates for all stages of the malaria parasite (Plasmodium) lifecycle. It is expected that we will in future be able to combine the best of these malaria vaccine candidates from each lifecycle stage into a single multivalent malaria vaccine that will be able to prevent both clinical disease and onward transmission of the parasite. It is also expected that we will have a new adjuvant called LMQ (a helper compound that when administered with the vaccine increases immune response to the vaccine), which we believe will boost the efficacy of many malaria vaccines. The socio-economic impact of an effective malaria vaccine would be very considerable leading to fewer deaths, lower malaria control costs, reduced health-care burden, and fewer work hours lost to sickness. The cost-effectiveness of this planned vaccine would mean it can be deployed in the poorest countries that are most in need of it. The availability of an effective malaria vaccine should have a substantial positive impact on the future economic development of countries currently afflicted by a high malaria disease burden.
Website & more info
More info: http://www.optimalvax.eu.