Blocking the transmission of malaria: The mosquito vector target

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Project Information

People

• Dr María-Gloria Basáñez
• Dr Thomas Churcher

Funders: European Commission FP7 Framework

Disease: malaria

Countries involved: UK, France, Italy, Greece, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda

Collaborators

• Dr George Christophides (PI)
• Prof Fotis Kafatos
• Prof Robert E Sinden
• Dr Dina Vlachou
• Prof Jacob Koella

Mathematical models that describe the population biology and transmission dynamics of parasites are important tools for understanding and predicting the effects of control interventions. A central conceptual advance of the proposed research is the approach to transmission blocking from a systems biology perspective, by bringing together expertise from different disciplines, joined by mathematical modelling. The biology of malaria both within the mosquito and vertebrate host is complex, and only relatively recently has this complexity started to be exploited for designing novel ways to intercept transmission. The entire project focuses on non-conventional strategies for malaria control that have the mosquito at their epicentre, and will investigate how effective transmission-blocking vaccines, compounds, and vector immunity will be at reducing parasite transmission. Interactions between parasites, vectors, and immune mechanisms are likely to be strongly nonlinear and potentially counterintuitive. The usefulness of modelling will lie in its ability to quantify the processes concerned (in experimental and natural systems); identify functional relationships that capture appropriately (yet parsimoniously) underlying biology; estimate corresponding parameters and their uncertainty, and investigate interactions with other transmission variables and processes. This will allow us to investigate the impact of different transmission-blocking strategies on the epidemiology of malaria and to predict the parasite’s and vector’s evolutionary responses to control.

External Investigators and Collaborators: Dr Oliver Bilker (Sanger Institute), Dr Annette Habluetzel (University of Camerino, Italy), Dr Gareth Lycett (LSTM), Dr Anne Cohuet (IRD, France), Prof Christos Louis and Dr Thanasis G. Loukeris (Foundation of Research and Technology, Hellas, Grece), Jean-Bosco Ouedraogo (Institut de Recherche en Science de la Santé, Burkina Faso), Prof Fred Kironde and Dr JB Kaddu (University of Makerere, Uganda)