Research Roundup: Plants as vaccines, the African CDC, and herd immunity in Zika

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Novartis has launched patient testing of a new anti-malaria compound with the hopes of staving off the development of further drug-resistance. The experimental compound—KAF156—will be tested in combination with another medicine in children and adults across nine countries in Africa and Asia over the next few months. In recent years, there have been increasing reports of malaria parasites that have become resistant to the standard treatment regimens against malaria, spurring the need for new treatment options from different classes of antimalarial compounds. Novartis expects to complete phase 2b studies of the compound by late 2019. It remains too early to tell whether the product will eventually reach market. A strain of gut bacteria taken from the diaper of a baby could hold promise in saving the lives of thousands of newborns in poor regions. Scientists conducting a large clinical trial in India found that babies who were fed a probiotic strain of Lactobacillus bacteria for a week were 40 percent less likely to develop a deadly infection called sepsis, which kills 600,000 newborns per year in India and other nearby nations. Babies who took the probiotic also had fewer cases of pneumonia, diarrhea, and ear infections. Researchers believe this probiotic—which costs only US$1—could be a “game changer” in advancing the health of infants in poor nations. Scientists at Harvard University are genetically engineering relatives of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) in the hopes if speeding development and clinical trials to develop a better TB vaccine. The only currently available TB vaccine is partially effective in children and performs poorly in adults, so scientists are working to develop other vaccine candidates. However, performing clinical trials on vaccines is challenging because a typical clinical trial involves observing large numbers of people over long periods of time to monitor results in a small subset of people that naturally come into contact with the microbe. Alternatively, “challenge studies” infect people on purpose, so are faster and less expensive, but these studies are only possible if the disease can be detected and treated easily. TB can take time to detect and many months to treat, so is not appropriate for this type of study. The team at Harvard is working to genetically modify TB so it can be safely given to people as part of challenge trials, and thus help speed vaccine development. 

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. A new tool developed by the University of Greenwich uses hot water and human scent to lure and trap mosquitoes. The tool is a simple black bucket attached to a wind tunnel that blows warm air with a human scent. The mosquitoes, initially attracted to the scent, are lured to the bucket, and then use the thermal indicators of the warm water to land. The bucket itself is covered in a sticky plastic that traps the mosquitoes. This tool is inexpensive, easy to build, and has proven to be effective in trapping large amounts of the insect. The developers are testing the prototype in three African nations and believe the tool could be a breakthrough in reducing mosquito-borne diseases. Pew Charitable Trusts has announced it will create a new cloud-based digital platform to allow researchers to share data and collaborate to discover new antibiotics to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). As AMR levels continue to rise across the globe, scientists are moving quickly to discover new antibiotics that can treat resistant strains of viruses and bacteria. The platform will host a “virtual laboratory” for scientists to collaborate and crowdsource information to break through common obstacles and limitations associated with discovering new antibiotics. The system is expected to launch within a year. Antibiotic use in Chinese factory farms is expected to double by 2030, causing concern in the science community. Because more than half of the antibiotics used globally are used in China, scientists are worried that increased use in the poultry industry could accelerate the growth of antimicrobial resistance. Researchers are also concerned the industry practices have made avian flu an increasing global threat. The global livestock industry has been under scrutiny for years following a major dirty meat scandal involving major fast food chains, highlighting continued issues with the worldwide impact of food supply chains. Scientists urge changes to make livestock healthier, reduce greenhouse gases, and track the global movement of meat.