May 18, 2020
In a paper recently published in Journal of Infectious Diseases, Liriye Kurtovic, James Beeson and team at Burnet Institute have investigated how the leading vaccine RTS,S induces protection against malaria. Despite being the most advanced malaria vaccine to date, RTS,S is only 30-50 percent protective against clinical malaria in infants and young children.
This study evaluated functional antibody responses in clinical trials of RTS,S and demonstrated for the first time that vaccination with RTS,S induced antibodies that function to recruit complement and activate specialised immune cells against malaria.
“In this trial, healthy US volunteers were vaccinated with RTS,S and those who developed antibodies with high anti-malarial functional activities were more likely to be protected against malaria,” lead author, Burnet Postdoctoral Research Officer, Dr Liriyre Kurtovic, said.
A deeper understanding of the protective antibody functions induced by RTS,S can inform the improvement of this and other malaria vaccines to increase their efficacy.
Read more here.