New research unravels how the human immune system responds to invasion of malaria parasites
Limited understanding of how the human immune system responds to the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, is a hindrance to the development of effective vaccines and therapeutics against malaria. NIAID grantee, Fidel Zavala M.D., Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is working to unravel the complexity of this immune response.
His current focus is on developing animal model systems to study the T-cell responses to Plasmodium in the liver. Recent findings have shown that the human immune response to the malaria parasite begins in the lymph nodes rather than in the liver, as was previously thought. The T cells produced by the lymph nodes then work with those produced by the liver to defend the body against the malaria parasite.
Dr. Zavala has also found that a person’s memory T cells can be stimulated to expand by giving them a booster dose of certain candidate malaria vaccines. This is an important development because memory T cells remember the body’s immune response so that when a person is re-exposed to malaria parasites, the immune system is prepared to defend itself. This T cell population expansion depends on the design of both the vaccine candidates and the regimens for administering the vaccines.
These and other findings have contributed to the basic understanding of malaria immunity, which in turn supports the malaria research community’s goal of optimizing the design of vaccines and their protocols of administration.
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