Initiative Establishes Partnership to Test Vaccine Candidates.(Brief Article)

2001 JAN 24 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Under the auspices of a newly formed partnership with the Malaria Vaccine Initiative at PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), the Emory University Vaccine Research Center, Atlanta, Georgia, has begun the first of a series of malaria vaccine trials that researchers hope will significantly advance progress toward an effective vaccine.

Heading the trials is Mary Galinski, PhD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases of Emory's Department of Medicine and an affiliate scientist at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, where the Vaccine Research Center is located. The trials are sponsored by the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) at PATH, a non-profit organization that conducts health programs around the world.

Over the next several years, Dr. Galinski and her collaborator, Yerkes scientist Alberto Moreno, MD, will conduct multiple staggered trials in primates aimed at assessing the safety, dosing, and immunogenicity of several potential vaccines. These primate trials are an important step in the development of malaria vaccines.

Galinski emphasized that primate trials are vital to the successful development of safe, effective malaria vaccines. "We welcome this opportunity to participate in the testing of vaccine candidates, which will be chosen from among those developed by leading institutions from various parts of the world, and will involve scientists from both developed and developing countries where malaria is prevalent."

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