Breakthroughs Blog: Research Roundup

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Novartis has launched patient testing of a new anti-malaria compound with the hopes of staving off the development of further drug-resistance. The experimental compound—KAF156—will be tested in combination with another medicine in children and adults across nine countries in Africa and Asia over the next few months. In recent years, there have been increasing reports of malaria parasites that have become resistant to the standard treatment regimens against malaria, spurring the need for new treatment options from different classes of antimalarial compounds. Novartis expects to complete phase 2b studies of the compound by late 2019. It remains too early to tell whether the product will eventually reach market. A strain of gut bacteria taken from the diaper of a baby could hold promise in saving the lives of thousands of newborns in poor regions. Scientists conducting a large clinical trial in India found that babies who were fed a probiotic strain of Lactobacillus bacteria for a week were 40 percent less likely to develop a deadly infection called sepsis, which kills 600,000 newborns per year in India and other nearby nations. Babies who took the probiotic also had fewer cases of pneumonia, diarrhea, and ear infections. Researchers believe this probiotic—which costs only US$1—could be a “game changer” in advancing the health of infants in poor nations. Scientists at Harvard University are genetically engineering relatives of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) in the hopes if speeding development and clinical trials to develop a better TB vaccine. The only currently available TB vaccine is partially effective in children and performs poorly in adults, so scientists are working to develop other vaccine candidates. However, performing clinical trials on vaccines is challenging because a typical clinical trial involves observing large numbers of people over long periods of time to monitor results in a small subset of people that naturally come into contact with the microbe. Alternatively, “challenge studies” infect people on purpose, so are faster and less expensive, but these studies are only possible if the disease can be detected and treated easily. TB can take time to detect and many months to treat, so is not appropriate for this type of study. The team at Harvard is working to genetically modify TB so it can be safely given to people as part of challenge trials, and thus help speed vaccine development. 

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Scientists at the UK’s John Innes Centre believe that a plant closely related to tobacco may hold promise in accelerating polio eradication by transforming vaccine manufacturing. Scientists have hijacked the plant’s growing mechanisms with genetic code for making the outer surface of poliovirus and taught them to grow virus-like particles, which are then extracted into a vaccine. This resulting vaccine mimics the poliovirus, and thus elicits an immune response, but contains none of the properties that cause a poliovirus infection. Scientists are hopeful this may be an effective way to create safe vaccines in the future that aren't made with live viruses, and hope to mimic the process with other viruses as well. Following the 2014 Ebola outbreak in several African countries, an African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) was formalized and launched to focus on capacity building in Africa to protect against infectious disease threats. Ending malaria is an important target of the Africa CDC, but there is much to be done to achieve this goal. First, efforts to collect real-time data must be strengthened to ensure the Africa CDC makes informed decisions. Second, international aid institutions and African nations must provide adequate resources to support the Africa CDC. Third, the international community must continue to work toward malaria eradication. Scientists believe individuals in the Americas have developed herd immunity that has resulted in a significant drop-off in Zika incidence. Once a person is infected with Zika, it is not possible for them to be infected again, so they can no longer pass on the virus to mosquitoes who pass it on to other individuals. Scientists think because Zika is usually asymptomatic in non-pregnant individuals, many have been infected and are now immune. This suggests that as the number of people resistant to the virus increases, incidence of others contracting the virus will decrease. With that said, however, scientists still urge pregnant women to take caution when traveling to Zika endemic areas of the world.

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. A new tool developed by the University of Greenwich uses hot water and human scent to lure and trap mosquitoes. The tool is a simple black bucket attached to a wind tunnel that blows warm air with a human scent. The mosquitoes, initially attracted to the scent, are lured to the bucket, and then use the thermal indicators of the warm water to land. The bucket itself is covered in a sticky plastic that traps the mosquitoes. This tool is inexpensive, easy to build, and has proven to be effective in trapping large amounts of the insect. The developers are testing the prototype in three African nations and believe the tool could be a breakthrough in reducing mosquito-borne diseases. Pew Charitable Trusts has announced it will create a new cloud-based digital platform to allow researchers to share data and collaborate to discover new antibiotics to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). As AMR levels continue to rise across the globe, scientists are moving quickly to discover new antibiotics that can treat resistant strains of viruses and bacteria. The platform will host a “virtual laboratory” for scientists to collaborate and crowdsource information to break through common obstacles and limitations associated with discovering new antibiotics. The system is expected to launch within a year. Antibiotic use in Chinese factory farms is expected to double by 2030, causing concern in the science community. Because more than half of the antibiotics used globally are used in China, scientists are worried that increased use in the poultry industry could accelerate the growth of antimicrobial resistance. Researchers are also concerned the industry practices have made avian flu an increasing global threat. The global livestock industry has been under scrutiny for years following a major dirty meat scandal involving major fast food chains, highlighting continued issues with the worldwide impact of food supply chains. Scientists urge changes to make livestock healthier, reduce greenhouse gases, and track the global movement of meat.

In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have developed a Zika transmission model using mice in order to model the virus’ transmission from human-to-human. While humans are naturally more susceptible to contracting Zika than mice are, scientists were able to use genetically modified mice to validly mimic the transmission. Scientists found that while vertical transmission is possible from mother to fetus, some of the fetuses were not infected with the disease, suggesting the placenta is capable of being an effective barrier to the disease. They also found that Zika can be found in the lymph nodes, suggesting the virus can infect more areas of the body than previously thought. The World Health Organization has provisionally recommended the use of a new insecticide bed net, the Interceptor G2, which is capable of killing up to 75 percent of mosquitos that have become resistant to a common insecticide. The Interceptor G2 bed net combines two different insecticides: pyrethroid, which is currently used in insecticide-treated nets, and chlorfenapyr, an insecticide previously only used in agricultural settings. Studies in sub-Saharan Africa have yielded promising outcomes, with the nets remaining effective even after having been washing up to 20 times. Three studies recently published in Emerging Infectious Diseases found new treatments against multidrug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) are delivering positive results. The largest study focused on a year-long delamanid treatment for 53 MDR-TB patients. Following treatment, 73.6 percent had a favorable response, with 67.6 percent of participants having multiple negative TB cultures. The second study analyzed bedaquiline therapy on 27 children with both MDR- and XDR-TB, and found that of the 23 children that remained a part of the study over the year, all had negative cultures. The third study was retroactive, with researchers observing combined bedaquiline and delamanid therapies in XDR-TB patients. In a total of five participants, researchers found one was culture negative, three were continuing treatment, and one had died. While these studies all have small sample sizes, preliminary data suggests these drugs have a high efficacy in treating resistant strains of TB.