A dose of vitamins to block malaria transmission

Malaria is a devastating disease causing 600,000 deaths each year. While the combination of new malaria medication and mosquito-based interventions have played a vital role in reducing malaria burden in the last two decades, emerging resistance against all clinical antimalarials and insecticides has stalled progress towards malaria elimination. Therefore, there is an urgent need for innovative malaria interventions. An innovative new way of deploying malaria medication was recently proposed: curing mosquitoes from their infection. The aim is to advance this creative and promising approach substantially by bringing in a radically novel dimension: The hypothesis is that targeting nutrient metabolism in both the mosquito host and the malaria parasite with a single drug can simultaneously reduce the mosquito population and block parasite transmission. Vitamin B6 is a central factor for many downstream pathways in all kingdoms of life. This includes pathways important for transmission of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium, and fertility of its vector, Anopheles. The effect of targeting vitamin B6 will be studied on mosquito survival and fertility, and on parasite survival and growth in the mosquito. Next, vitamin B6 analogs that could inhibit downstream enzymes will be screened seeking a drug that cannot only cure the mosquito but also reduce the mosquito population. These results will lead to fundamental insights on the biology of vitamin metabolism in host-pathogen interactions, identified essential pathways for drug development in mosquitoes, a scaffold for drug optimization and may ultimately lead to a novel innovative strategy to reduce malaria burden.

Project Details

Basic Science

Jan 2025 — Dec 2027

United States