Baseline host and environmental factors that impact pre-erythrocytic malaria vaccine (hypo)responsiveness in endemic regions

01/03/2022 to 28/02/2027

An effective vaccine would complement other public health measures and is likely essential for putting an end to the high burden of malaria worldwide. Unfortunately, most malaria vaccines that entered late-stage clinical development, have shown moderate efficacy in low and middle income countries. Through a number of studies vaccine efficacy was shown to vary from 20% to 100% when used in different countries and populations. Better understanding of factors that influence this variation is urgently needed. Even within a country significant differences in vaccine efficacy in rural and urban areas are present. This implies that exposure to environmental factors plays a major role besides genetic determinants. How and to what extent environmental exposures can influence immune profiles and in turn affect responses to vaccines? This question will be addressed in the current project. Technological advances in “omics” platforms have improved our ability to examine the immune system in a more unbiased manner. Such platforms, involving transcriptomics, are being increasingly applied to understand vaccine responses, with promising results.