Research Fellow Konstantinos Kousis Presents Latest Work in Infection Biology
Singapore Malaria Network (SingMalNet) Meeting 2026.
This meeting fostered new ideas and concepts by bringing together scientists working in multiple aspects of malaria. These areas included clinical and epidemiological research, as well as in vitro laboratory studies of the human pathogens Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax. Other model organisms including the rodent and non-human primate Plasmodium species also featured. The SingMalNet meeting also provided a great opportunity for young up-and-coming scientists to meet established global experts in multiple disciplines of malaria research.
Lay summary of the presentation
Plasmodium vivax is one of the most widespread malaria parasites, affecting millions of people every year and despite efforts, there is currently no vaccine available for P. vivax malaria. One of the major candidates for a P. vivax vaccine, is a protein called Duffy Binding Protein (PvDBP), which is essential for invasion via its interaction with a red blood cell receptor, DARC. However, the inability of long-term P. vivax culture has hampered efforts to understand its mechanistic role during invasion as well as efforts to design a vaccine that is able to counter the different variants of PvDBP.
The closely related malaria parasite P. knowlesi shares the same invasion pathway and can act as a surrogate system providing a useful tool to understand not only the biology of PvDBP but also to assess how different antibodies against PvDBP affect parasite growth. Recent advances in genomics approaches (bar-seq), in combination with the versatility of the P. knowlesi system has allowed us to create lines that express different variants of PvDBP. By combining these technologies, we have screened a panel of 60 individual antibodies against 5 different PvDBP variants with a much faster output compared to traditional methods.
We are now expanding our panel of PvDBP variants from 5 to 36 in order to cover the most common polymorphisms in circulation. Ultimately, this platform offers a powerful new tool for identifying the best candidates for a PvDBP vaccine but also paves the way to study important polymorphisms in many different drug and vaccine candidates supporting the rational development of new therapeutics and vaccines, which are crucial for fighting P. vivax malaria.