Science, Technology and Engineering

Research Fellow

Department of Biochemistry

MSP2: Characterization and development of a malaria vaccine antigen

Dr Christopher Adda BSc(Hons) (La Trobe), PhD (La Trobe) Research Fellow, Anders lab Phone: +61 3 9479 3150 Fax: +613 9479 2467 Email: C.Adda@latrobe.edu.au

Research

Our focus is on the asexual stage of the life cycle of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum , in which merozoites rupture either from the liver cells or the red blood cells and proceed to invade other red blood cells. It is these merozoites that are particularly vulnerable to attack by the immune system and hence, there are a number of merozoite proteins that are important vaccine candidates. Our efforts are focused on the merozoite surface and in particular the merozoite surface protein 2 (MSP2), which we are developing into a vaccine. The MSP2 vaccine development project is funded by the Malaria Vaccine Initiative , based in the US. We are also working in close collaboration with GroPep Pty Ltd to develop processes for large-scale production of the vaccine to be used in the initial human trials. My role in the vaccine project includes developing assays for the in-process characterisation and evaluation of the vaccine product as well as pre-clinical efficacy studies of different vaccine formulations.

An important part of developing a vaccine is to understand the functional role and properties of the vaccine candidates so that they can be produced in a way that induces the optimal immune response. A part of my role on the MSP2 vaccine project is to characterise the properties of MSP2 and better understand how the protein functions on the merozoite surface. Our initial studies have shown that recombinant MSP2 is an unstructured molecule that forms a soluble fibre. The fibrils formed by MSP2 have been shown to have similar properties to amyloid suggesting that MSP2 may have a role as a functional amyloid on the merozoite surface. By understanding of the biology of the malaria parasite strategies can be developed to rid the world of this disease.

Publications

Rekas A, Adda CG , Andrew Aquilina J, Barnham KJ, Sunde M, Galatis D, Williamson NA, Masters CL, Anders RF, Robinson CV, Cappai R, Carver JA. (2004) Interaction of the Molecular Chaperone alphaB-Crystallin with alpha-Synuclein: Effects on Amyloid Fibril Formation and Chaperone Activity. J Mol Biol. 340(5):1167-83.

Adda CG , Anders RF, Tilley L, Foley M. (2002) Random sequence libraries displayed on phage: identification of biologically important molecules. Comb Chem High Throughput Screen. 5(1):1-14.

Adda CG , Tilley L, Anders RF, Foley M. (1999) Isolation of peptides that mimic epitopes on a malarial antigen from random peptide libraries displayed on phage. Infect Immun. 67(9):4679-88.

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