Led by first-author Tonny Owalla, we recently published a forward-looking perspective piece in Frontiers in Immunology's collection 'Puzzle Pieces From Malaria Vaccine Clinical Trials' entitled "Rethinking detection of pre-existing and intervening Plasmodium infections in malaria clinical trials". The paper, which is based on lessons learned from an epidemiology study conducted by Mr. Owalla and our own recent PhD graduate Dr. Dianna Hergott, argues that more frequent and more intensive molecular diagnostic testing is needed before, during, and after malaria vaccination to fully assess the role of underlying P. falciparum and non-P. falciparum infections in sub-optimal vaccine responses (LINK). This approach may sound expensive, but the critical data can be cost-effectively obtained using at-home dried blood spot (DBS) collection and pooled DBS testing as a part of trial design, as we recently demonstrated in Dr. Hergott's feasibility study publication (LINK). More to come when the full data from that study is published in the coming months!
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April 2024
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