Infectious Disease

Miguel Soares of Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia in Portugal will test the theory that antibodies directed against a specific carbohydrate produced by gut pathogens play a role in immunity against severe forms of malaria. Newborns and young children, who are most susceptible to these severe forms of the disease, have not yet built up antibodies to this carbohydrate. Soares will assess whether stimulating production of this antibody in young children can offer them increased protection.

Miguel Prudencio of Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Portugal will test the theory that modified live rodent malaria parasites (P. berghei) can be used in a vaccine to elicit a strong immune response in humans without being able to infect human red blood cells and cause illness. This was successfully tested in Phase I, and they also established that the human antigens carried by the parasites could induce a selective immune response in mice. In Phase II, they will test their vaccine in Phase I/IIa human trials and evaluate it for safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity.

Dr. Robert Gilman of A.B. PRISMA in Peru proposes to develop a rapid method of evaluating treatment response to tuberculosis and multidrug-resistant TB by measuring exhaled nitric oxide. Preliminary data has shown that patients with MDR-TB exhibit elevated levels of FeNO, and identifying these patients early can lead to alternative treatments to reduce transmission.

Bart Knols of K&S Consulting in the Netherlands will develop and test a surface coating that slowly releases mosquito attractants and a pesticide that female mosquitoes take back to breeding sites to kill emerging larvae. If successful, the coating can be used as a household paint to induce birth control in vector populations, thus reducing transmission.

Yutaka Terao of the Osaka University in Japan will construct and test synthetic immunoglobulin derived from the human immune system. If successful, these molecules could provide protection against a broad range of bacteria, including multiple-antibiotic resistant pathogens.

Alessandro Ripalti of Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Bologna S.Orsola-Malpighi in Italy will attempt to produce an engineered HIV integrase, an enzyme produced by the virus to integrate itself into host chromosomes, and test its ability to instead cut the virus' DNA at its integration sites in the human genome.

Christoph Grevelding of Justus-Liebig-University in Germany will test the effectiveness of Imatinib, a cancer drug which inhibits kinase activity and cellular changes in cells, to impair and kill parasitic worms which carry Schistosomiasis. If successful, Imatinib could serve as a new drug therapy to fight this chronic disease which affects millions in developing countries.

Ali Salanti of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark will develop and test a vaccine combining a new placental malaria vaccine candidate with the cervical cancer vaccine, with the potential of inducing a strong protective response against both diseases simultaneously. This project's Phase I research demonstrated that a combinatorial HPV and placental malaria vaccine induced highly functioning antibodies relevant to both diseases.

Guozhi Wang of the National Institute for Control Pharmaceutical & Biological Products in China will assess the effectiveness of a new inexpensive skin test that can differentiate between true Tuberculosis infection and the markers of the BCG vaccination. Because the current TB screening protocol is not sensitive enough to tell the difference, this new test could lead to earlier and better treatment options for those with early-stage infections.

Jintian Tang of Tsinghua University in China will design and test a portable, non-invasive device for its ability to kill the worm larvae that causes the chronic parasitic disease Schistosomiasis. Tang's research has shown that the worm larvae, which enters through the skin and causes immediate dermatitis, die at temperatures low enough to not harm human skin. By applying a heated device on the skin upon the first signs of dermatitis, the worm larvae can be eradicated before entering the human blood stream.