Research Roundup: UK vaccine center to help fight epidemics, global map of HIV reveals vaccine challenges, and researchers create antibodies to test and treat 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. For the first time, scientists have mapped how the world’s deadliest malaria parasite, plasmodium falciparum, is able to enter and infect human blood cells—a key advancement in the quest for a vaccine against a parasite that kills more than 500,000 people each year. An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Australia, used the world’s most advanced cryo-electron microscope, the Titan Krios, to create a three-dimensional image of the parasite’s “key” to infection—a complex of three parasite proteins which work together to unlock and enter a human cell. This mapping provides scientists with a clear picture of how infection takes place, with lead researcher Professor Alan Cowman noting, "We now have the information required to design a vaccine that gives the immune system precise instructions about how to stop the malaria parasite." According to a report released by the Treatment Action Group, global spending on tuberculosis (TB) research hit an all-time high in 2017—reaching US$772 million, up from $726 million in 2016. Despite this upward trend, according to the TB research community, total TB research funding for 2017 still falls short of the $2 billion per year needed to end the disease by 2030—a target that is one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and part of the World Health Organization’s Global Plan to End TB. The report also notes that most of the $46 million increase in TB research funding from 2016 to 2017 was driven by funding from the public sector, with the US government as the largest investor with a contribution of $312 million. An earlier version of this report was released in September to inform the first-ever United Nations High Level Meeting on TB, where member states committed to closing the $1.3 billion annual gap in funding TB research. Using multiple state-of-the-art microscopes, researchers at the University of Missouri were able to see how the chikungunya virus moves within a mosquito’s body—contributing to new understanding that could help one day lead to the prevention of mosquito-borne diseases. According to one researcher, it was previously common understanding that “…when a mosquito has picked up a virus, it first needs some time to build up inside the midgut, or stomach, before infecting other tissues in the mosquito." However, this study proved there is a narrow window of 32–48 hours between the time when a mosquito picks up a virus to when the virus leaves the mosquito’s stomach to infect someone it has bitten. One day, researchers aim to inhibit the genes involved with the release of the virus from within the mosquito’s stomach to prevent transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

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. The Population Council and its partners announced the launch of the first clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of a male contraceptive gel—an innovation that could advance contraception and bring more equality to the burden of family planning, which is largely borne by women. The gel, known as NES/T, is a novel, reversible contraceptive composed of a progestin hormone used for female contraception and testosterone. The gel is designed to be applied daily and absorbed through the skin on the upper arms and shoulders. The phase 2b trial, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, will test the product for pregnancy prevention among more than 400 couples. Should NES/T prove effective, it would be the first user-controlled method for contraception for men since the condom. Last Monday, South African drug maker Aspen Pharmacare launched a triple-antiretroviral (ARV) combination tablet for the treatment of HIV in South Africa—a country which accounts for 19 percent of the global burden of people living with HIV and 15 percent of new infections. The new medicine, known as Emdolten, is taken once daily and contains dolutegravir, an antiretroviral medication that counters the drug resistance that often develops with older HIV treatments, along with lamivudine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate. In May, the South Africa Regulatory Authority and the European Medicines Agency issued a warning advising doctors not to prescribe dolutegravir to women seeking to becoming pregnant following cases of birth defects in a study; however, Aspen Pharmacare stated that using dolutegravir is safe for men, women not of child-bearing age, and child-bearing women using contraceptives, which account for approximately 70 percent of HIV patients. Researchers have developed a way to freeze-dry an inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) so that it can be stored at elevated temperatures, up to 40°C, for four weeks and then dissolved for use without losing its potency—potentially offering a new tool to eradicate the disease. While existing oral vaccines have led to polio’s elimination in many countries, these oral vaccines contain a weakened live virus, which can cause paralysis in rare cases. Thus, there has been push to use IPVs, which contain dead strains of the virus. Although IPVs have already been introduced in many countries, their widespread use is inhibited by their sensitivity to temperatures above and below approximately 4°C (39.2°F).