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Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Researchers discovered that the meal times of malaria-infected organisms may impact the rate at which the malaria parasite multiplies in the host’s blood. A team at the University of Edinburgh studied the parasitic rhythms of reproduction and invasion of red blood cells in malaria-infected mice and found that the parasites timed their daily multiplication rhythms to match when the animals were fed. When the mice’s feeding time changed, the parasites altered the timing in which they invaded red blood cells. Researchers believe that interfering with the biological processes that link eating to these parasite rhythms—through diet, drugs, or other approaches—could reduce the spread of malaria infection A team of scientists recently created a prototype oral flu vaccine that does not need to be temperature controlled—paving the way for potential new oral vaccines that do not require refrigeration or freezing. Unlike traditional biological vaccines, which are made from part of a virus or bacteria and must be temperature controlled to remain stable, this oral vaccine prototype contains manmade peptides that mimic peptides in real viruses. Scientists found the prototype triggered a strong immune response when tested in human cell cultures and in mice. While more research is needed, these early results are promising. A heat-stable oral vaccine would be easier to transport and store, which could improve care in low-resource, hard-to-reach communities were immunization supply chains may be insufficient. Scientists at the Jena and Friedrich Schiller University Hospital are working to develop a rapid antibiotic resistance test. Current diagnostics for drug-resistant infections can take up to 72 hours to deliver results—a long amount of time for these infections, which can be acutely life-threatening. Using light-based analytical methods combined with microfluidic sample processes—which the researchers colloquially referred to as a miniature Lab-on-a-Chip system—the scientists were able to clearly identify bacterial strains and their resistances in fewer than three hours. New rapid tests for antibiotic-resistant infections could help get patients on treatment more quickly and reduce the overprescription of antibiotics.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week.   A daily, one-month tuberculosis (TB) prophylaxis regime may provide the same protection for HIV-positive individuals as the standard nine-month prophylactic regime, according to a new study. HIV-positive individuals are at heightened risk of contracting TB, and TB kills more people with HIV than any other disease, including AIDS-associated illnesses. The phase III study found that while protection rates against TB were similar in a group receiving one-month of treatment versus nine-months, toxicity was lower in the one-month group and fewer people in the one-month group experienced neurologic and liver events, though more people in the one-month group experienced hematologic events, including anemia and drops in white blood cell counts. Researchers need to study the regimen further, but these results are promising. A shorter, simplified TB prophylaxis regimen could improve patient adherence. Scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Malaria Research Institute used CRISPR, a gene-editing tool, to make mosquitos highly resistant to the malaria parasite, making it much less likely for the mosquito to transmit the parasite to humans. Scientists used CRISPR to delete a gene—FREP1—that helps the parasite survive in the mosquito's gut and develop further, making the malaria parasites within the mosquito much less likely to survive and reproduce. This study marks the first time a mosquito has been rendered resistant to malaria by deleting a gene. Scientists believe replacing wild mosquitos with these gene-edited mosquitos could dramatically reduce the incidence and subsequent burden of malaria in local populations. It may be possible to create a drinkable solution to provide protection to individuals during a cholera epidemic, according to new research. Cholera is set off by a toxin, which attaches to the intestinal wall and causes life-threatening diarrhea. Researchers found that introducing certain molecules into the intestine can prevent the cholera toxin from binding to specific receptors on the intestinal surface. The researchers believe these results offer the possibility of creating a drinkable antidote that would put these receptors offline. This solution could be easier and quicker to administer than vaccines in an epidemic scenario, helping immediately reduce the spread of cholera in an affected area.