BIRCH team
Malaria National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fred Hutch Center for Infectious Disease Research
June 20, 2017 | Health News

Geekwire: University of Washington Initiative Awarded $9.3M to Fight Deadly Malaria Strains in India

By Clare McGrane

Viruses and parasites are constantly changing. That’s the reason last year’s flu shot isn’t as effective against this year’s flu — the virus has evolved to resist it.

The same is true for malaria, but unlike the flu, malaria is one of the most deadly parasites in the world, and it’s becoming resistant to the lifesaving drugs that can cure it.

Photo of mycobacterium tuberculosis protein structure
Infectious Disease Center for Infectious Disease Research Wes Van Voorhis School of Medicine
June 08, 2017 | Department News

HS Newsbeat: Major Milestone Reached Against Infectious Diseases

By Bobbi Nodell

A collaboration involving UW Medicine researchers reached a major milestone toward helping investigators create drug therapies and vaccines for some of the world’s major infectious diseases.

The group solved 1,000 protein structures from more than 70 infectious disease organisms.

Understanding protein structures -- the basis of drug therapy and vaccines -- is key to understanding how infectious diseases are different from us, said Dr. Wesley Van Voorhis, head of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the UW School of Medicine.

BIRCH team
Malaria Center for Infectious Disease Research Vaccine Research
April 24, 2017 | Health News

HS Newsbeat: How Close are Local Researchers to a Malaria Vaccine?

By Bobbi Nodell and Alex Murphy

As 400,000 people a year are still being killed by malaria, researchers in Seattle are fervently working on a vaccine.

How close are they?

Well, they have several hurdles left but in the next 10 years, there very well could be a malaria vaccine given enough funding, said researchers Stefan Kappe and Jim Kublin, who are working on a vaccine candidate at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CID Research) in Seattle.

BIRCH team
Malaria Center for Infectious Disease Research Vaccine Fred Hutch
January 04, 2017 | Health News

VOA News: Genetically Engineered Vaccine Prevents Malaria in Mice, Findings Show

By Jessica Berman

A genetically engineered malaria vaccine has been shown to prevent the disease in mice, researchers say. The findings offer hope of halting the illness in humans, as well as stopping transmission of the mosquito-borne disease.

Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) at the University of Washington, in conjunction with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, have developed a vaccine that uses the entire malaria-causing parasite — called P. falciparum — to stimulate a protective immune response.

BIRCH team
Malaria Vaccine Fred Hutch Infectious Disease Center for Infectious Disease Research
January 04, 2017 | Health News

Hutch News: On The Path to a New-Generation Malaria Vaccine

By Mary Engel

Researchers may be one step closer to a truly effective malaria vaccine, a new study suggests. A genetically modified malaria parasite worked as designed in its first human clinical trial, causing neither malaria nor serious safety problems in the 10 people who volunteered to be infected. It also stimulated an immune response that holds out promise of a more protective vaccine than the single candidate now in pilot studies