Oral Presentation First Malaria World Congress 2018

Unravelling the course of malaria infections and protective targets (#196)

Melissa Kapulu 1
  1. KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi, Kenya

Controlled human infections models for malaria are a powerful for target antigen identification, selection, prioritization and development especially in the context of naturally acquired immunity. This platform has the potential to identify correlates of protection in humans that have remained poorly defined in epidemiological studies. Thus, controlled human malaria infections (CHMI) provide a rapid means for the identification of antigens to be prioritized for vaccine development. We have established this platform in Kenya – in semi-immune adults with a range of prior exposure to malaria. These volunteers have been infected with intravenous sporozoites and closely monitored clinically and by qPCR for development of parasitaemia. Pre-challenge antibody responses have been tested using a newly developed custom protein microarray (KILChip v1.0) containing >100 Plasmodium falciparum merozoite antigens. The outcomes of this approach will be presented and discussed including an analysis of differential antibody responses between participants and their association with outcome.