Researchers have managed to raise enough money to trial a groundbreaking malaria vaccine on humans but say their fight for finances highlights ongoing issues with medical research funding.
Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics has developed a malaria vaccine that can be freeze-dried, enabling it to be transported and stored without refrigeration. This greatly expands its potential for use in the developing world, where malaria remains entrenched.
Malaria researchers Dr Danielle Stanisic and Professor Michael Good in their lab at the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith’s Gold Coast campus.
The researchers have now cobbled together $1.34 million – enough to proceed with a phase 1 clinical trial in human volunteers – after partnering with Australian Rotary clubs and receiving grants from the federal government’s Medical Research Future Fund, as well as individual donations.
Lead researcher Danielle Stanisic said they were very happy to be able to progress to the next stage of the research to see whether the vaccine is effective in humans.
But Dr Stanisic said the fact that it took five years to put the funding together was in contrast to funding for COVID-19 vaccines, which were rolled out in less than a year.
“When you have funding, research progresses, and we’ve seen that with COVID vaccines over the past two years,” she said.
“A lot of funding was thrown at vaccine research because it was an immediate problem for everyone in the world.”
Dr Stanisic said she did not begrudge the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines, but said other diseases, such as malaria, also needed funding to prevent large death tolls.
“I think it’s easy in Australia to forget that there are diseases like malaria that disproportionately affect the poorest countries,” she said. “And it’s not getting better – the deaths are actually going up each year, they’re not going down.”
Malaria vaccine trial highlights research funding woes
Source: Philippines Alive
