Research Roundup: Noninvasive malaria test, Mpox vaccine trial for kids, Novel class of antimicrobial agents

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. Scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and research partners have developed an innovative antibody platform to tackle viruses like SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) that can rapidly evolve and render vaccines and treatments ineffective. The platform uses engineered nanobodies to simultaneously target multiple stable regions of the virus that are less likely to mutate, making it harder for resistance to develop. While most therapeutic antibodies target only a single viral site and can lose effectiveness within a year as viruses evolve, this platform has the potential to offer a more durable, resilient defense against these tricky viruses. It could also be potentially adapted to target other pathogens. In lab tests and experiments in mice, the platform was able to effectively target a range of variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and even the closely related SARS-CoV virus. A new research project led by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and Columbia University aims to develop a lateral flow test for diagnosing malaria at the point of care that would also enable health care workers to determine the severity of the disease and decide whether a course of treatment is necessary. While some patients with uncomplicated malaria can be treated at home, malaria can also rapidly progress and require more complicated treatment in a health care setting. Lateral flow tests for malaria diagnosis exist, but parasite counting using microscopy is needed to determine severity and that cannot be done at the point of care. The researchers, who hope to have a validated prototype by the fall of 2026, are looking to develop a portable, paper-based assay that uses a smartphone and can deliver results within minutes.   Last Monday, Roche announced that its mpox assay, Cobas MPXV, has been listed under the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Emergency Use Listing procedure, a designation that aims to accelerate the availability of and access to the test during the current global mpox emergency. The automated real-time PCR-based test detects DNA from the virus that causes mpox using a dual-target approach and previously received Emergency Use Authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration in 2022. Earlier this month, Abbot’s mpox test was also listed on the Emergency Use Listing procedure following a call by WHO for manufacturers to submit expressions of interest back in August.