New malaria vaccine approach attracts collaboration

The Burnet Institute in Melbourne and German-based ARTES Biotechnology will collaborate in the development of a malaria vaccine with the aim of taking the project a step towards being evaluated for use in humans.

The project, funded by the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (PATH MVI), is focusing on producing vaccines that block the transmission of malaria infection from mosquitoes to humans.

The work at the Burnet Institute led by Professor James Beeson, co-head of the Centre for Biomedical Research, involves a new approach using noninfectious virus-like particles (VLPs) to express malaria proteins.

The idea is that the VLPs will be taken up by immune cells, stimulate an effective immune response and boost the immune system to withstand malaria infections.

“The expression of malaria proteins is notoriously difficult because they are complex and large in size,” said Beeson. “Many VLPs aren’t able to express them but this platform does.”

Two big challenges Beeson cites for developing a malaria vaccine are defining the targets to focus on and inducing an immune response that is potent enough to combat the parasite.

The team at Burnet developed VLPs that express many malarial proteins or target antigens for initial testing of the vaccine. They have also created a VLP that is the optimal size for stimulating the immune system.

VLPs have already been used to produce hepatitis B and human papilloma virus vaccines, so Beeson is confident their new approach will be safe to use in humans.

The collaboration with ARTES will take the work a step further and adapt the platform to manufacturing processes.

“ARTES has expertise in cell expression lines and purification procedures that result in a highly pure product,” said Beeson. “They will develop production protocols and technology to get the construct right and take the first step to producing modest quantities of VLPs for proof of principle studies.”

Based in Germany, ARTES holds the international patent rights for the Metavax platform, a chimeric VLP platform the company has adapted to vaccine production.

ARTES will produce high-quality vaccine and test its efficacy. The PATH MVI funding will support testing whether this approach is superior to currently established approaches used to treat malaria - Beeson is confident it will be.

ARTES also has the capacity to scale-up production and take the platform through to GMP production.

“If it works it will be a fairly straightforward process,” said Beeson. “We’re confident it will be a great platform but whether the immune response produced will be strong enough to combat malaria is yet to be seen.”

The novel technology has overcome one roadblock - expressing malaria proteins. The next roadblock to overcome is to show that the immune response is strong enough to be clinically effective.

PATH MVI is a global program of the international nonprofit organisation PATH established in 1999 through a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.