Simon Draper: Progress in Malaria Vaccine Research

Malaria immunity

Dr Simon Draper's research interests include studies of vaccine-induced malaria immunity. His group focuses on translational medicine: they will take their most promising vaccine candidates and manufacture them as clinical grade material. The next step is proof of concept clinical trials (Phase I and IIa) in healthy volunteers.

A vaccine against malaria

The malaria parasite is a highly evolved and complex organism, a 'master of disguise'. Whilst the development of a vaccine has proved difficult, targeting a pathway essential for the parasite has led to the neutralisation of all strains of Plasmodium falciparum. This is an important step towards developing a vaccine against one of the world's major killers.