The Ramón Areces Foundation Renews Its Support for Malaria Research at ISGlobal

The study of malaria has been a priority on the scientific agenda of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) since its creation. Malaria, the world's foremost parasitic disease, claims more than 600,000 lives every year, disproportionately affecting children and pregnant women. Despite advances over time, the malaria parasite and the mosquito that transmits it have found various ways to evade the insecticides and treatments that target them. For this reason, it is essential that the scientific community continues its research to bring forward new knowledge and innovative strategies to end this disease.

The Ramón Areces Foundation (FRA) has recently renewed its commitment to ISGlobal through a new collaboration agreement to financially support basic science research conducted by researchers at ISGlobal's Malaria Scientific Programme.

The FRA's support plays a key role in the continuation and development of research into the molecular mechanisms of malaria. In the long term, this work is expected to provide new tools to combat the disease, thereby supporting malaria endemic countries with their control and elimination strategies. 

"Without the support of the Ramón Areces Foundation, it would have been impossible to maintain the level of excellence in basic malaria research at ISGlobal," says Quique Bassat, Director of the Malaria and Neglected Parasitic Diseases Programme at ISGlobal. "Malaria mortality has increased by 12% between 2019 and 2020. It is at times like this that the basic science that studies the parasite can and must provide new knowledge that can ultimately be applied and influence our future strategies to control and eliminate the disease," the researcher adds.

In recent years, research on the molecular mechanisms of malaria has focused on the study of protection against malaria, genomic surveillance of circulating strains in endemic countries such as Mozambique, the investigation of new therapeutic targets based on a more solid understanding of parasite biology, the exploration of the role of exosomes in Plasmodium vivax infection, and the detailed evaluation of the mechanisms that determine the sexual transformation of the parasite, among many other topics. In the coming period 2023-2025, the programme will continue to investigate aspects of malaria parasite biology and host-parasite interactions relevant to malaria control.

Among the activities foreseen in the signed agreement, a new scientific conference on malaria will be held at the beginning of 2024 and periodically in the coming years at the FRA headquarters in Madrid. In April 2022, the two institutions organised the symposium "Malaria: Research For Impact in the COVID-19 Era", which addressed the many challenges facing the global scientific community in the fight against this disease, as well as some of the achievements made in recent years.