Research Roundup: What we’re reading this week

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. A new, first-of-its-kind trial will assess the safety and immunogenicity of Bavarian Nordic’s MVA-BN mpox vaccine in pregnant and breastfeeding women and infants under two years old, two populations at risk of severe complications from mpox but not currently eligible for vaccination. MVA-BN is the only vaccine for mpox prequalified by the World Health Organization and is currently approved for healthy adults and adolescents, but additional data from this trial could help expand access for additional key populations amid the ongoing mpox outbreak. The trial, which will start early next year, is jointly funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Global Health EDCTP3.Researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed a new drug that could help combat the spread of treatment-resistant malaria, as the disease continues to kill more than 600,000 people every year and Plasmodium falciparum, a mosquito vector that spreads malaria, grows increasingly resistant to artemisinin, the frontline malaria treatment. The drug, adapted from a cancer treatment approach, works by permanently disabling a protein that P. falciparum uses to duplicate itself in humans. The researchers behind the drug think it could be more effective than current drugs at all stages of malaria infection, potentially with only one dose.A research team from the University of California, Santa Barbara has found a way to potentially reduce the spread of mosquito-borne diseases by disrupting male mosquitoes’ ability to hear, which is essential for them to mate and breed. Male mosquitoes rely on the sound of female mosquitoes’ wingbeats in order to find and mate with them. By altering a genetic pathway that male mosquitoes use for hearing, the researchers were able to stop them mating entirely, preventing female mosquitoes, the ones that spread diseases to humans, from having babies and reducing overall mosquito populations. Specifically, the researchers studied Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread diseases including dengue, yellow fever, and Zika.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Recently published research found that a new, noninvasive test for malaria could provide a more reliable, safer, quicker, and more sensitive diagnostic option in low- and middle-income countries. The Cytophone, a tabletop printer-sized device, uses targeted lasers and ultrasound to detect malaria-infected cells in the bloodstream via a small, noninvasive probe placed on the back of a person’s hand. Malaria-infected red blood cells accumulate a by-product with unique properties that can be distinguished from normal red blood cells when they pass through a laser. The test, which provides results within minutes, was found to be as good or better at detecting symptomatic Plasmodium falciparum malaria infections than the current gold standard point-of-care methods for malaria testing, which require blood samples and special laboratory equipment. The next phase of testing the device will also investigate whether the device can detect and distinguish between other species.Last Tuesday, Bavarian Nordic announced the start of a clinical study of the MVA-BN® mpox/smallpox vaccine in children between 2 and 11 years old, who are highly vulnerable to infection during the ongoing mpox emergency. The study, which currently has sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo and plans to include sites in Uganda as well, is investigating the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine in children compared to adults. Last month, the World Health Organization prequalified the vaccine for adolescents between 12 and 17 years old, following the European Medicines Agency’s approval for this age group. Results from the new trial could support an extension of the current approval.Researchers have identified a novel class of antimicrobial agents known as encrypted peptides that play a key role in the immune system’s response to bacterial infections, opening up new possibilities for combating drug-resistant infections as antimicrobial resistance continues to grow as a global health threat. The immune system is traditionally thought to rely primarily on proteins explicitly linked to immune functions, but this new research reveals that other structural proteins contribute to antimicrobial defenses. Leveraging the immune system’s natural defenses through these non-immune proteins could allow researchers to develop effective antibiotic therapies less prone to resistance.