October 13, 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm
FreeLeveraging Protective Antibodies to Guide Next-Generation Malaria Vaccine Design
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Azza Idris, MD, PhD
Malaria remains a major global health challenge, disproportionately affecting young children and pregnant women. Despite substantial progress in malaria control, developing highly effective and durable vaccines has remained a longstanding challenge. The recent introduction of two malaria vaccines represents an important advance; however, protection remains incomplete and wanes over time, underscoring the need for improved approaches to malaria vaccination.
Human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) offer both a promising strategy for malaria prevention and a powerful tool for understanding the mechanisms of protective immunity. The research team has isolated rare, potent human mAbs that target highly conserved epitopes within the central repeat region of the Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein (PfCSP). Several of these antibodies have demonstrated high levels of protection in controlled human malaria infection studies and in malaria-endemic settings, identifying conserved sites of vulnerability on the parasite.
These insights are now being leveraged to guide next-generation malaria vaccine design. Using humanized mouse models, the team is investigating humoral responses elicited by immunogens incorporating these protective epitopes and defining how antigen design shapes antibody responses. Through these studies, the goal is to translate lessons from protective human antibodies into rationally designed vaccines while continuing to identify potent antibodies for malaria prevention.
In this presentation, Dr. Azza Idris will discuss how insights from protective human monoclonal antibodies are informing the development of next-generation malaria vaccines, including approaches to designing immunogens that target conserved sites of vulnerability on P. falciparum.
This webinar is free and open to the public and will include time for audience Q&A.
Speaker
Azza Idris, MD, PhD
Attending Physician, Divisions of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Global Health, Mass General Brigham for Children; Assistant Professor, Harvard School of Medicine; Principal Investigator, Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard
Dr. Azza Idris is a physician-scientist whose research focuses on understanding protective immunity to malaria and translating these insights into new approaches for prevention. A native of Sudan, where she witnessed first-hand the impact of malaria, she now leads a laboratory at the Ragon focused on developing next-generation vaccines and antibody-based interventions.
Dr. Idris is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Brigham, and a Principal Investigator at the Ragon Institute of MGB, MIT, and Harvard. She earned her B.Sc. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her MD/Ph.D. from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She completed her pediatric residency at Emory University, fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s National Medical Center, and postdoctoral training at the NIH Vaccine Research Center.
Before joining the Ragon Institute, Dr. Idris led the Malaria Unit at the NIH Vaccine Research Center, where she directed the discovery and clinical translation of human monoclonal antibodies for malaria prevention. At the Ragon, her laboratory investigates vulnerabilities of the Plasmodium parasite and the host immune responses that prevent infection, with the goal of translating these insights into improved vaccines and antibody-based interventions. She is committed to fostering scientific rigor, curiosity, inclusivity, and collaborative partnerships to advance global health.
Moderator
Sarah Volkman, ScD
Principal Research Scientist, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Professor of Nursing, Simmons University
Dr. Sarah Volkman is a molecular biologist who researches the genetic variation in Plasmodium falciparum, a causative agent of human malaria infection. Dr. Volkman has over twenty years of experience studying the genetic metrics of malaria, transmission dynamics, and the mechanisms of drug resistance. In addition to her role as Principal Research Scientist at the Chan School of Public Health, Dr. Volkman also collaborates with the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control on malaria control and prevention and teaches nursing students pathophysiology and human disease processes at Simmons University. She received her ScD from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the Division of Biological Sciences and her BA in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from the University of California, Davis.
