Background

 

 

At the core of MalariaGEN's scientific programme is the simple but intriguing question: why, in regions where every individual is repeatedly exposed to malaria parasites, do some people become severely ill or die from the infection, while others show little or no sign of disease?

 

 

Understanding how the immune system of some individuals naturally protects them from malaria will provide valuable information to inform the design of a malaria vaccine, while also revealing new insights about our innate immune system and its response to infection in general.

By combining large-scale epidemiological studies with state-of-the-art genomic technology, we hope to find places in the human genome where small differences can have big impact on the way the immune system responds to malaria. To this end, MalariaGEN's key strength is in numbers: our partners pool resources - human DNA samples and associated clinical data from populations in malaria endemic countries - to build the large datasets required to perform these genetic analyses with confidence.

MalariaGEN's scientific programme is organized into 4 principal Consortial Projects, which define both the overarching scientific objectives of the Network and the local deliverables for each partner institution.