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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

Import to your local calendar

CP9: Vaccines 15 min talk sponsored by Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Griffith University

Time:

Wednesday, 01/July/2026:

11:20am - 11:35am

Session Chair: Danielle Stanisic, Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Griffith University
Session Chair: Anouschka Akerman, The University of Queensland

Location: Lecture Theatre 2

Boulevard Room 2

External Resource:

Presentations

Genome-based, human-informed development of a T cell-based vaccine against malaria

Anouschka Akerman¹, Maggie King¹, Jonathan Tan¹, Mengistu Seid², Ashton M Kelly¹, Yomani Sarathkumara¹, Brenna Daily¹, Daniel J Browne², Jamie L Brady², David J Pattinson², Sarah Draper³, Lauren Holz⁴, Ian F Hermans⁵, William R Heath⁴, Gavin F Painter³, Carla Proietti¹, Denise L Doolan¹

¹Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; ²James Cook University, Cairns, Australia; ³Victoria University Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand; ⁴The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; ⁵Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, Wellington, New Zealand.

Malaria remains a major global health challenge. Current vaccines RTS,S and R21 targeting the surface circumsporozoite protein provide limited and strain-specific protection, highlighting the need for durable, cross-species protection. Robust T-cell-mediated responses against conserved liver-stage proteins offer strong potential for cross-species protection, but optimal targets are unknown. We have pursued a genome-based, human-informed approach to rational malaria vaccine design by profiling T-cell and antibody reactivity against the complete P. falciparum proteome in malaria-immune individuals. We identified distinct, largely non-overlapping repertoires of T-cell and antibody targets. The most immunodominant T-cell antigens exhibit minimal antibody activity and higher conservation across species, supporting the potential of T-cell targets for cross-species protection. These data support a new paradigm for development of a vaccine to prevent infection and disease.

We prioritized 25 T-cell targets for functional evaluation of immunogenicity and protective capacity in a murine malaria model, using liver-targeted mRNA or DNA-adenovirus platforms. Lead candidates all induced robust liver-resident memory T-cells, with antigen- and platform-specific immune profiles, and conferred protection against P. yoelii sporozoite challenge, reducing both liver- and blood-stage parasitemia. These results validate our genome-based vaccine design, focused on T-cell antigens and provide validated candidates for a next-generation, cross-species malaria vaccine targeting liver stage.