Quest on for Vaccine That Prevents Spread of Malaria

Updated November 15, 2018 This content is archived.

Research led by Jonathan F. Lovell, associate professor of biomedical engineering, has provided a breakthrough in efforts to boost the efficacy of malarial transmission-blocking vaccines to help reduce the spread of the disease that kills more than 400,000 people annually. “For some decades, researchers have been working on a novel idea called a ‘transmission-blocking vaccine.’ This vaccine is different from traditional vaccines that protect the recipient from getting the disease. Here, the vaccine blocks the transmission of the parasite that causes malaria from an infected human host to mosquitoes,” Lovell said. Research was conducted in the Lovell Lab.