Two steps toward creating vaccines against malaria were announced this week.
The first came from Genzyme Transgenics Corporation, which successfully tested a malarial vaccine with primates. The second came from an announced venture between the US Navy and another chemical company, Galenica Pharmaceuticals. Galenica announced Tuesday it had made an agreement with the Navy to further develop a vaccine.
Genzyme Vice President of Research, Dr Harry Meade, said in a statement that a recent study performed by the company successfully demonstrates that proteins obtained from milk harvested from animals capable of transmitting the disease “can elicit protective immunity in a simian model.”
Testing with Aotus nancymai monkeys produced of version of Merozoit Surface Protein 1 that successfully protected the monkeys from malaria. The tests were performed in conjunction with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The milk proteins “may have significant technical as well as economic advantages for the manufacturing of vaccines against malaria,” Meade said.
Scientists from the Institute and Genzyme altered a genetic sequence of the milk protein to boost the amounts of MSP-1 and boost immunity to malaria.
During the blood stage of the infection, malaria parasites multiply in red blood cells of infected individuals. These red cells eventually burst, releasing invaders—called merozoites—that attack other red blood cells and continue the infection.
MSP-1 is a protein associated with the merozoite stage of the malaria life cycle, Genzyme said in a statement. “A vaccine based on this protein would be expected to interfere with the development of red cell infection, resulting in protection against malaria.”
More work, meanwhile, will be done between the Navy and another US company, Galenica.
The two will develop a vaccine using another kind of immunity booster, GPI-0100, a partially synthetic antigen that works by seeking out abnormal cells, according to a joint statement.
“Preclinical findings have shown that GPI-0100 has the valuable ability to stimulate…immune response” against malaria parasites, according to Dante Marciani, founder of Galenica.
The World Health Organization estimates that 300 million to 500 million people are infected worldwide each year. More than 1 million are killed annually, mostly infants and children.
