April 30, 2017
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NIAID funds seven international malaria research centers

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The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, recently awarded approximately $9 million in first-year funding to seven international malaria research centers that conduct work in 14 endemic countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to a press release.

The 7-year awards, which are subject to availability, support three new and four existing International Centers of Excellence for Malaria Research (ICEMRs).

“NIAID-supported ICEMRs have made significant contributions to malaria research since their creation in July 2010,” NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, MD, said in the release. “We look forward to their continued multidisciplinary efforts to further our understanding of the complex interactions between human hosts, mosquito vectors and the Plasmodium parasites that cause malaria, so that we may work toward controlling, eliminating and eventually eradicating this global scourge.”

Although there has been substantial progress in expanding malaria control efforts in vulnerable populations, according to WHO, an estimated 212 million new cases and 429,000 deaths occurred in 2015 alone, mostly in Africa.

With the use of previous funds, ICEMR researchers discovered that certain rapid diagnostic tests for malaria sometimes fail to identify cases because the parasites do not express the antigen that the tests are designed to detect, the release said. Other research conducted at ICEMRs confirmed a substantial shift in vector behavior, possibly in response to malaria control interventions. Although malaria is typically transmitted by Anopheles mosquitoes indoors and late at night, more mosquitoes now appear to transmit the infection outdoors and earlier in the evening, before people are able to seek shelter under protective bed nets.

“The impact of research performed by the ICEMR network goes beyond the results of individual experiments,” Lee Hall, MD, PhD, chief of NIAID’s Parasitology and International Programs Branch, said in the release. “For example, the program has placed many parasite and mosquito genomes into the public domain, to assist other researchers in developing the next generation of drugs, vaccines and diagnostics.”

According to the release, the funds will be allocated to the following ICEMRs:

  • The Amazonian Center of Excellence in Malaria Research (principal investigator, Joseph Vinetz, MD; lead institution, University of California, San Diego);
  • Multidisciplinary Research for Malaria Control and Prevention in West Africa (principal investigator, Seydou Doumbia, MD, PhD; lead institution, University of Sciences, Techniques & Technologies of Bamako, Bamako, Mali);
  • Malaria Transmission and the Impact of Control Efforts in Southern and Central Africa (principal investigator, William Moss, MD; lead institution, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore);
  • Program for Resistance, Immunology, Surveillance & Modeling of Malaria in Uganda (principal investigator, Grant Dorsey, MD; lead institution, University of California, San Francisco);
  • Environmental Modifications in sub-Saharan Africa: Changing Epidemiology, Transmission and Pathogenesis of Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax Malaria (principal investigator, Guiyun Yan, PhD; lead institution: University of California, Irvine);
  • Southeast Asia Malaria Research Center (principal investigator, Liwang Cui, PhD; lead institution, Pennsylvania State University, University Park); and
  • Myanmar Regional Center of Excellence for Malaria Research (principal investigators, Christopher Plowe, MD, MPH; and Myaing Myaing Nyunt, MD, MPH, PhD; lead institution, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore).

Disclosure: Infectious Disease News was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures.